


Breathe you in

by pleasebekidding



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, M/M, Mutual Pining, Requited love w00t, Sentinel/Guide, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-02 10:11:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15794382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding
Summary: Alaric is a Universal Guide who has given up on the hope of ever bonding with a Sentinel. He's fine with that. He has accepted that. He's not expecting to meet a Sentinel who has come online this late, and this powerful, and who has no desire to bond.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have recently fallen in love with the Sentinel/Guide AU. I haven't seen the original show, but I don't think it matters. I'm paying my respects here to all the writers in this trope whose stories have inspired me. You guys are fucking amazing.
> 
> I ordered the whole show on DVD I don't intend to watch it until I've finished this story. I love the fanon more than I like the summaries I've read of the show, but I'm looking forward to it. If you have a favorite connected trope, please let me know and I'll see if its possible to incorporate it.

Alaric approached the restaurant with trepidation.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in dating. Far from it; though there were times in his life when he went for months or even a year or two without a strong desire to find someone to be with, he went through just as many phases where he was intensely lonely, and honestly… he’d been lonely, the last few months. Still, a blind date. Though he trusted Meredith. If she said he was going to like this woman, there was every chance he might.

He was early. Hadn’t been intentional. But he was early, sitting at a table booked in Meredith’s name. He looked up as a tall, strong-looking woman with a lot of long, black hair approached the maître d’, and turned to meet his eyes.

Oh, crap.

He gave her a little wave, and she smiled ruefully as she approached the table for two, conspicuously in a very romantic corner position, and took her seat.

“Guide Saltzman,” Jo said, slipping into her seat. “What an, uh, interesting coincidence. You know Meredith?”

“Dr. Laughlin. Very well, for a lot of years,” he said, with a nod. “And please, call me Ric, this is awkward enough without the formalities. You?”

“We went to medical school together.” Jo was a good-looking woman, might even have been Alaric’s type, under other circumstances, with her dark hair and her pale eyes, her determined expression and fierce intelligence. But there was no way he was dating a colleague. Not unless it was one hundred percent guaranteed to be serious, and even then, he’d be cautious. “And you’d better call me Jo. What do you want to do, here? We could just laugh it off, call it a night. It’s not as if this could go anywhere.” There was another question in her eyes, but she didn’t look prepared to ask it, or not yet. Alaric had an inkling he knew what it was.

“You know something — the food here is great, you’re new to the Center, let’s just have a nice meal and get to know each other a bit. After all, we will be working together. I take it Meredith doesn’t know where you’re working?”

“No. It’s awkward. I’ve always said I didn’t want anything to do with the… whole Sentinel-Guide thing, and it’s ridiculous, but I haven’t gotten around to telling her I accepted this over a job at Mount Sinai. I think I’ll have to tell her tomorrow, though.”

A waitress came to the table with a smile. “I understand this is a blind date. Would you like to start with a glass of champagne?”

Alaric laughed.

“Actually, it’s an aborted blind date, since we work together. And I’m personally in the mood for a beer. Ric?”

They chose something from a local small-batch brewery, and took a look at the menu.

“I’m intrigued, I have to admit. Because I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who was dead set against working for the Centers, and certainly not someone who makes it sound as inevitable as you. Care to, uh, share?”

“Oh,” she said. “It’s complicated.” She paused for a moment, and then shrugged it off. “I come from a family with a lot of twins. And mostly, each set has a Sentinel and a Guide. And mostly the Sentinels come online young. Ten, twelve years old, sometimes earlier. They tend to surface bond with their twin and then when they head off into the world, they’re already strong and experienced. Very desirable traits for a bonded pair. And it’s a long, long line. But my twin brother and I… almost nothing. I didn’t mind. I wanted my own life, I was studying medicine. But when we hit 23 — past the oldest age any of my family had come online… well, Kai snapped. He killed two of our siblings, and our mother, and tried to kill us all. So. The entire subject isn’t my favorite.”

Alaric wished he hadn’t asked. He didn’t notice he’d dropped the menu and was staring; she was so matter-of-fact about it all, but he remembered. It had been a topic of discussion or a long fucking time, amongst people in their profession.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, and honestly, she did look to be mostly okay about talking about it. Tired, maybe. “Look, I changed my name, but even so, it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out who I am.”

“Josette Parker,” Alaric said. “I remember.”

Jo shrugged, and returned her gaze to the menu. “So. That’s my sob story. Although sobbing isn’t my thing. I have a limited amount of enhanced empathy, not enough to work as a Guide, but enough to help me out as a diagnostician. And you know how dangerous injuries can be with rapid healing. If something starts healing before we can correct any problems, it can be a disaster.”

The waitress brought the beers, and some sympathy garlic bread which smelled good.

“So is this why you came to New York?” Alaric asked.

“No. A desire to be as far away as possible from Washington state brought me. But I’ve always loved the city. What about you?”

“Just work,” he said. “This is the largest Center in the country. It makes sense they'd want me here.”

They eased into a gentler conversation, then. About Alaric’s favorite haunts, mostly, since it transpired that he and Jo were living only blocks from each other (not exactly a coincidence, since they’d both needed to find somewhere close to the Center, but they were very close). Restaurants, bars, gyms, good spots for live music, though Jo wasn’t remotely interested in his favorite running trail through the park. She had a seafood risotto, and Alaric a steak as thick as his fist and still complaining loudly about being dead, with a huge pile of steamed vegetables, including a large side of mashed potato. Sentinels and Guides were fairly famous for having very healthy appetites; using the kind of energy they did burned a lot of calories, with more of the brain switched on for most of the time. And Alaric was a strong Guide. To the best of his knowledge, he was the strongest Guide recorded, not that it was something he talked about. Anyone who actually needed his information could access it, and his track record spoke for itself.

Jo looked at the dessert menu, once they’d polished off the beers, their dinners, and a bottle of white wine which had been a little on the sweet side for Alaric’s taste but nonetheless nice. His head was feeling pleasantly foggy, the emotions of their fellow diners dulled back until he couldn’t feel anyone pushing at his barriers.

“Is it tacky to ask for the biggest dessert on the menu?” she asked. “I want to be rolled home in a sugar coma.”

“I’d suggest the death by chocolate, then. That’s Meredith’s favorite.”

Jo glanced at him. “Sold. Did you two…”

Alaric shook his head. “No. We’ve known each other for too long for that to work. Grew up in a little town in Virginia where everyone knew everyone.”

He decided on a slice of cheesecake with ice cream on the side, and Jo declared that whiskey was in order. Alaric suspected his head might be a little unforgiving in the morning, but he agreed readily.

“So,” Jo said, carefully, when their order had been taken. “I know this is a stupid question, but Meredith knows you’re a…”

“She does,” he agreed.

“So why is she setting you up with someone like _me_?”

Alaric felt a twinge of pain, somewhere in his chest. He rested his elbows on the table, and weaved his fingers together.

“I’m thirty-nine years old,” he said. “And you know what my job is.”

Jo nodded. “Universal Guide. You help out when a strong Sentinel comes online, or gets into trouble, zones or worse. Help train the stronger Guides who enroll at the Center. Is that about right?”

Alaric nodded, and leaned back in his chair, wishing the whiskey was already there. He was grateful that at least when it came it was a generous pour.

“I’m 39 years old, and I’ve been doing this job for fifteen years — and studying before that. Surrounded by Sentinels my entire life. I _meet_ probably twenty unbonded Sentinels a year, on average. All over the country. Only the ones that are strong enough to need someone like me, all five senses online and A grade or higher. Are you getting my drift?”

Jo sighed. “I’m nearing it.”

“There’s no record of any Guide bonding with a Sentinel past the age of 34. That was five years ago. So… it’s not gonna happen. And I’ve made my peace with it. So I don’t get the promised magic moment, the rockets red glare and feeling of meeting a soul mate. So I don’t get to learn what it’s like to be completely in sync with someone. At least I get a taste of it at work, and I’m good at my job. And it doesn’t mean I have to be alone my whole life. I date. It’s fun, it’s nice, it’s never serious, but maybe one day it will be.”

“It just seems like such a… I mean, there are more Sentinels than Guides, right?”

“Yeah, but most of them are low-level, and honestly, if they find a healthy romantic relationship or a really intense friendship that works in a similar way, it’s enough to keep them on an even keel. We don’t even know about them unless something goes wrong. They don’t always realize themselves. So I think it probably evens out.”

Jo shrugged. It was rather sweet, the concern she had for his wellbeing.

“It’s really okay, Jo. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s not perfect. I would have liked to find out what it was like, the whole bond thing. But I don’t need it to live a good life, and I don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. I really don’t. I date, I get laid when I’ve got a scratch to itch, I haven’t given up on things like getting married and having kids. It just doesn’t drive me anymore.”

The desserts arrived, and neither pretended not to be tucking in with gusto. “Meredith makes the exact same face when she’s got chocolate in front of her.”

“I know. We were roommates for a year. We enabled each other terribly. But we couldn’t afford anything this good. So… are you bisexual?”

Not all Guides were, but most seemed to be wired that way. Probably an evolutionary benefit, allowing a wider bonding pool, as unromantic a prospect as that might be. Gender had never factored into attraction for Alaric. He could really imagine what it would be like, for that to be an issue.

“Yeah,” Alaric said.

“So… if I have a friend I think you’d like?” She cocked her head, and curled her pretty mouth into a sly smile, which significantly offset the faux innocent eyes.

Alaric chuckled. “You know what… thanks, but I think right now I might just try to keep the dating pool and my work separate. But I do appreciate it.”

 

 

Afterwards, they split the bill and shared a taxi back to Jo’s apartment. After a friendly hug, they said goodbye, and Alaric walked the rest of the way to his own place with a smile on his face. Even if that hadn’t been the date he’d anticipated, he’d had a good time. And he felt good about Jo, as a doctor, her role at the Center. She understood better than most doctors did what could go wrong. And he didn’t hate the idea of having a friend around, someone who didn’t envy his abilities and couldn’t tell him what to do.

He let himself into his apartment, drank a couple of pints of water, and headed to bed.

 

 

It was an uneventful weekend. For Alaric, at least. A punishing run in Central Park on Saturday (seventeen miles, not bad for a guy who had definitely drunk a little more than he was supposed to on Friday night), some grocery shopping before a Sunday afternoon food prep marathon while pretending not to watch Civil War on television (the whole Sentinel Bucky/Guide Steve separated for eighty years and still doomed storyline killed him every fucking time).

But when the news came on at the end of the movie, Alaric had to cringe.

An explosion in San Diego had brought down almost an entire city block. They were pulling people from the wreckage, sending Sentinels and Guides from the local Center along with emergency services personnel. It looked bad. There was a general callout for any other Sentinels and Guides within a few hours drive to join the efforts.

Alaric returned to his food prep, slicing up a mountain of green beans and chopping broccoli with the finesse of a chef, and wondered if he’d be called in to help.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The death toll, in the end, was horrific, and the number of people injured even higher. The explosion had predictably been reported first as an act of terrorism, but an investigation had found that a group of would-be bank robbers (all very caucasian and with none of the allegiances the conservative media had initially implied) had used an unconscionable quantity of C4 to break into a bank vault, and caused the whole block to collapse. It was all anyone in the country could talk about, those first few days. But work rolled on. Alaric had classes with young guides, a brief visit upstate to help out with a zoned Sentinel (sadly, there was no flicker of interest on either side, once he’d pulled the man out of his zone, but that was hardly surprising), and the usual piles of paperwork.

And then, on the Friday, moments before Alaric was going to clock out for the weekend, Jo burst into his office.

She slammed a file onto Alaric’s desk.

“You’re needed in San Diego,” she said. “You’re booked on a flight in three hours, reporting to the Center in the morning.” She opened the file. “He came online during the explosion. They thought he was unconscious, took him to the hospital. He’d been buried under the rubble for almost three days. Scripps did a CT scan.”

She turned the page, and Alaric inhaled sharply. This was no ordinary Sentinel brain. He’d never seen so much activity, every part of the brain lit up like a rainbow. The thought of a Sentinel this strong being trapped with all that noise, and dust, and so many ugly scents, while injured… Alaric let out a sigh of pity. His amygdala was red as a strawberry, which suggested he couldn’t pull himself out of a fear state; his hippocampus was twice the size it should have been, and a disturbing shade of lime green.

Fuck. This guy was a mess.

“He’s been conscious, briefly, a couple of times since they got him to the Center. Still no name, and none of the Guides there have been able to do a thing for him.”

“I’m not surprised,” Alaric said, gathering his jacket and keys. “I’d better get home and pack. All five senses, I assume?”

“No,” Jo said. “Six.”

Alaric looked up sharply.

“They asked him if he knew where he was, and how long he’d been there. He told them in precise time how long he’d been under the rubble, how long he’d been in the hospital, and how long he’d been at the Center. And then he tried to claw his ears off. _Six_ senses. _Time_.”

Shit. Alaric knew people had theorized about it, but he didn’t think anyone had ever demonstrated definitively that the awareness of time was even a sense, let alone that any Sentinel might have it enhanced. That might make things difficult. And it had to be hell, knowing how long he’d been there.

“He can only sleep in a sensory deprivation tank. And they can only keep him in one for a couple of hours at a time without risking skin injuries. He needs your help.”

“I know,” Alaric said. “I’m on it.”

“Ric,” she said.

“Jo.”

“I read your file. Do you know that there’s never been a Guide who demonstrated your level of empathy in all the years they’ve been able to measure it? No other Guide who’s ever failed to pull a Sentinel out of a zone?”

Alaric shrugged. “Yeah. Look, I don’t talk about it. I do my thing, and I do it well, but I hate the way people look at me when they know that shit. The idea that they have to live up to something. And it’s tiring, you know. I don’t just pick up on Sentinels.” He sat on the edge of his desk. “You ate corn with your lunch today, even though it doesn’t agree with you and your stomach hurts now. Your nurse — the blond guy with the mullet he refuses to acknowledge is a mullet — he broke up with his girlfriend last night and he’s blaming himself completely, spilling guilt all over the fourth floor. I can shut it out, but it’s exhausting, and it means I need to eat that much more. And eating as much as I do now is expensive. So.”

Jo bit her lip.

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have even told you that.” Alaric blushed, and ran his hand over his hair. “I should go.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d sacrificed a weekend to his job, and it wasn’t going to be the last one. Still, he thought about his Sunday plans with friends, and sighed. This was likely to be a very long week.

 

 

He checked in at the hotel across the road from the San Diego Center, already feeling jet-lagged and gluey after a long flight. Though he was tempted to go in straight away, he knew as well as they did that he needed to be rested and sharp to manage what he needed to manage. He ate the takeaway shawarmas he’d picked up at a food truck on the way from the airport (a tradition; they were huge and tasty, and he loved them), took a dose of valerian and one of melatonin, and went to sleep.

The following morning at the Center, he was welcomed by the director, Atticus Shane, which was surprising, since the guy was generally too busy to bother with visitors. Plus, Shane was rattled as hell, which was practically unheard of. Alaric could feel eyes on him from all directions as he slipped past the doors into the private area and past corridor after corridor of employees, whispers about _time_ and _zoned_ and _six senses_ all around him.

The Centers were well-funded. It made sense; strong Sentinels and Guides were the elite of law enforcement, the military, and other important agencies. And the work involved with matching them up and keeping them healthy was tremendous, while the cost of not having them available was even worse. For the most part, employees in the Centers were mid-ranking Sentinels and Guides, Sentinels with only two or three senses, and fairly weak. They had their place, they were important, and far less likely to collapse or zone or cause difficulties, and above all of that they understood things well enough to contribute. The only people in the Centers with normal senses (or close to) were the medical staff. Like Jo. Able to be neutral.

“You read the file?” Shane said, by way of a greeting.

“On the plane,” Alaric nodded back. “It’s a pretty crazy story. Have you got an ID yet?”

“Nothing. He’s only spoken three times, and the only response we got from him that made any kind of sense at all was about the time. Which I still can’t believe, and wouldn’t, if he wasn’t perfectly accurate. I’ve never heard of anything like it. I don’t know if even _you_ can get to him, Guide Saltzman.”

“Ric, I keep telling you. And I guess we’ll find out.” They took the elevator down to the lowest level of the building, and an orderly took Alaric away for his cleaning protocol.

“We’re not putting anyone else in there with you,” Shane said. “At least not for now. He’s too unstable. But my two strongest Universals will be on hand if you need them. I don’t have to tell you that time is of the essence. He hasn’t eaten anything since the explosion. And he won’t let us put in a naso-gastric tube. He hasn’t drunk a lot of water, because he says it tastes like poison — at least, we think that’s what he said.”

Shane looked exhausted. He had a tendency to get over-involved.

“If you can’t get him back into himself, he’ll be on life support by the end of the week and off it by the end of next.” Shane looked resigned, but it still sounded like a threat.

Alaric nodded. “I’ll do my best. I assume you’ll be watching?”

“I will. And listening. And if you don’t mind, we’ll record everything for training purposes. But I’ll avoid using comms if I don’t absolutely have to.” He handed Alaric an earpiece, and Alaric tucked it into his pocket for later. “I know he’ll probably be able to hear, if he can separate his senses at all.”

Alaric spent almost forty minutes in the clean room, scrubbing himself from head to toe in neutral, scent-free cleaning products that were really only necessary at moments like these. He needed to be able to control the senses he triggered with absolute accuracy. He dressed in scrubs made from extremely fine cotton, short-sleeved so his arms were available for touch, and he let his hair dry without product, which meant he was going to look a mess by the time he got out later.

 _If_ he got out later.

The door opened with a tiny pneumatic puff of air as Alaric approached, leaving no doubt that he was being watched. It closed behind him with a click, and he set his kit on the bare stainless steel table beside the bed.

The man on the bed was in four-point restraints, and it was obvious why. The scratches on his face and head suggested he had tried very hard at some point to rip his eyes out of their sockets, and claw off his ears. It must have been painful. He was bruised, as well, but those were fading. Probably from the explosion. The light in the room was down so low that it took some time to pick out the man’s fine features; long, dark eyelashes, feline cheekbones, bird’s nest of soft-looking black hair. He was probably gorgeous.

Alaric reached out, and ran his fingers over the man’s cheekbones. Gently. Establishing a baseline. He was long past the worries he’d had, early in his career, about touching someone without their consent. He was no different to a doctor, in a moment like this. It was urgent. Still, he took every step very seriously, recognizing the invasion of privacy, apologizing as he went, the only way he knew how.

“I’m Guide Saltzman,” he said to the man on the bed. “But you can call me Ric, because all that formal stuff doesn’t really suit me. I’m here to help. And I’m pretty sure you can hear me, so I’m gonna explain some things to you.”

His fingers moved carefully down to the exposed scrap of chest, which looked like a safer bet, considering he hadn’t tried to claw himself there. Alaric laid the palm of one hand flat against the soft skin, and slipped the other into one of the man’s hands, gentle as he could be. There was no response, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be.

“I only want you to focus on two things,” he said. “The sound of my voice, and the feel of my fingers.” Alaric could already feel the shallow bond forming between them. That seemed promising. “Just for now. Listen to my voice.”

The reason these treatment rooms were deep underground was to minimize ambient noise. The walls were thick, very thick, and layered for maximum sound absorbency. And the white noise generator in the ceiling was supposed to drown out anything residual. It sounded like rain.

“You’ve had a tough week. It must have been terrifying to wake up that way. I bet you’ve never felt so afraid in your life. It makes sense that you’d try to shut down. But you don’t need to do that. If you come back, come back to us, you’ll be safe. Is the touch too much? I want you to imagine you’re in a control room with fi- with _six_ dials in front of you. You’re the only one that can move those dials. One of them is touch. It doesn’t matter which, it’s your control room, you designed it. Find the dial for touch, and turn it counter clockwise. Right now, it’s really high.” Alaric could tell this, because the man’s skin was reddening under his touch. Like he was allergic to the contact.

“Dial it down. Not all the way. Down to a two or a three. Can you do that?”

Alaric waited patiently, stroking and smoothing, and the skin under his fingertips began to get paler.

“Good. That’s good, Sentinel. You’re really good at this. You’re in control, just the way you’re supposed to be. Good job. Your jaw looks tight. That tells me I’m being much too loud. Find the dial for hearing. Reach out, and turn it counter-clockwise. Down to about two. No lower, buddy, because you need to hear me. Okay?”

This seemed to take a lot longer, with Alaric murmuring quiet commands, still maintaining contact. He wondered if it would be safe to get up there on the bed with the man; full-body contact always worked best, but he was only just beginning to make a connection, here, and didn’t want to overwhelm.

The man’s neck and jaw seemed to relax, to the point where his head lolled slightly in Alaric’s direction. Alaric sighed in relief.

Time passed. Alaric took his hand away from the man’s weak grip, and unclipped the lid of his kit one-handed, reaching for a vial with a blue sticker on the top. He opened it one-handed and brought it closer to the man’s face. He wrinkled his nose, and bucked against the restraints briefly, turning away from the scent. For a second, his eyes fluttered open, but it was too dark in the room for Alaric to even glimpse the color.

“It’s a good scent, Sentinel. And it’s very mild, watered down. Chocolate. You probably like it. It smells good, it tastes good, there’s no down side. Maybe it brings back a memory. When I couldn’t sleep, when I was a kid, my mom used to make proper hot chocolate on the stove. I know, doesn’t make a lot of sense. It has caffeine in it. But that’s okay. Sentinel, find the dial for scent and turn it down. Right down to two or three. Wherever you notice that it smells good, instead of overwhelming.”

Alaric glanced at his watch, and flinched. How had that happened? He’d already been in the room for over three hours, and he was exhausting himself. Extending his own boundaries to let a distressed, out of control Sentinel bleed off some of his own sensory input. He was hungry, but he couldn’t slow down yet. That shallow bond was too fragile, and if he didn’t hold firm to it, a lot of this work would be for nothing.

“Do you need a break, Guide?” came Shane’s voice, over comms. Alaric shook his head. “Really? You’ve been at it for hours. Are you making any progress at all?”

Alaric spoke as quietly as he could. “I’ve got a bond. It’s fragile, but I need to pull him up further if I’m going to make it work. So please, back off. I’ll eat later.”

After a pause, Alaric heard the quiet crackle vanish.

“Sentinel. Go back to your controls. There’s one there for smell. Can you find it? Turn it down until you like the smell of the chocolate. Probably about 4.” He moved the vial closer again, and after a while, the man stopped flinching. His restrained hands moved, searching. “Okay, good. That’s good.” Alaric pushed against the fragile bond, testing. The man was at a level he could manage. Alaric stroked his face, and he didn’t pull away; if anything he might have pressed in, just a touch. Alaric felt a strange surge of longing. Whoever this Sentinel bonded with for real was going to be very lucky. It would feel amazing, to bond with someone like this, someone with such exquisite senses.

He slipped his hand down under the blanket, and up into the man’s scrub shirt. He was almost hairless, and a little warm, which was no surprise. Alaric spoke quietly, hand moving over the man’s stomach, trying to ground him as he opened another vial. This smelled like fresh baked bread.

“Don’t let the dial go over four,” Alaric said. “It smells good, doesn’t it. It tastes good, too. Fresh bread. Imagine fresh bread with butter. Good butter.”

The man tugged against the restraints. He was pouring sweat, now, from his forehead, his shoulders. His eyes fluttered, but didn’t open. “Sentinel,” Alaric said, pushing his voice into a command. “Dial down to three. It’s your command center, you have total control.”

“Alaric. Your heartbeat is at just over 120BPM,” came a voice over comms. Not Shane’s.

“I’m fine,” he murmured, and then louder, “You’re fine. Dial down to three. Are you getting hungry, yet?”

Three senses engaged. Alaric glanced at the time. Six hours. Fuck. He needed to eat, or at least drink something sugary, or he was going to crash. This was taking more out of him than any Sentinel in his entire career. But he could feel it, the shallow bond tightening, pushing. He knew that if he could get all fi- _six_ senses online, he could hold this man for as long as it took to find him a suitable Guide. Help him shore up some defenses and build some strong shields.

He envied the Guide who got that job more than he’d ever envied anyone in his life, and swallowed.

“140BPM, Guide Saltzman.”

Alaric dragged a hand over his face, and briefly debated tossing the earpiece aside. He reached into his kit for a small package of flavored sugar, and dipped his finger into it.

“Sentinel, we’re looking for a taste, now. It might feel strange, having me push past your lips, but I need you to taste this. It might be intense. I need you to be ready to dial down to one.”

The man’s lips were pillowy. Soft. Infinitely lickable, kissable. Jesus fuck. Alaric was losing it. He was a Universal Guide who couldn’t get tangled up in this man’s life, but when he felt the soft tongue move against his finger, the sense of need was overwhelming.

“Nearing 160BPM. You need to…”

“I feel weird.”

“Of course you do. Did you hear me? 165BPM. What’s happening?”

“I feel fucking weird. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Should we pull you out?”

Something. Something was happening. Alaric felt dizzy, but he felt an overwhelming sense of home, of love, of safety, as well. Great, some kind of oxytocin response. Just what he needed.

“Don’t you dare,” he said, and the line went dead again.

Alaric brushed his fingers over the man’s face, and his eyes fluttered again. “See? It tastes good, doesn’t it. But keep those dials down.”

“Okay, 145.”

Alaric tried to ignore the voice. But he couldn’t deny he was relieved that he was beginning to calm.

“You need to open your eyes. I promise you, the light is down low. You’ll be able to see, but even if it seems bright, it’s not. Are you ready?”

“115.”

Okay, the running commentary could stop. Again, Alaric wanted to toss the earpiece aside, and again, he remembered that he needed to follow the script. He had a job to do, the spike was receding.

“I need you to open your eyes. It’s okay, Sentinel. Dial down to one. Not zero, _one_. You need to be able to see. Once your eyes adjust, we’ll dial up. I’m not going anywhere.”

How it had happened, Alaric didn’t know, but he had one hand pressed against the man’s face, and the other was spread over his ribs, and he’d never felt more connected.

“145BPM,” said the voice on the other end of his comms. “Report. What’s happening?”

The man’s eyes opened. They swam, he blinked, he flinched, he looked at the ceiling and scrunched his eyes shut and fuck, but he had the most beautiful eyes Alaric had ever seen. So pale they looked silver, and with his pupils pinprick-small (the light was obviously still too much) every darting glance reinforced the vulnerability and panic.

But he was online, and focused.

“Sentinel,” Alaric said, and after a series of rapid blinks, the man made eye contact.

There was a sound.

To this day, if you were to ask Alaric, he wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was a sound he made himself, or if Damon had made it, or if they both keened in the same key at the same time. But at that moment, it really didn’t matter. Alaric was struggling with one of the wrist restraints, realizing it was the most efficient path to at the very least making some kind of contact. If he could have seen his own brain at the time, he would have recognized the flood of hormones, the hippocampus growing suddenly and the amygdala taking a breath out. It took too long to untie the first of Damon’s hands, but it was enough, once he’d managed.

 _Damon_.

“Oh, god,” Alaric said. His entire body was magnetized to Damon’s. Damon was all he could see, all he could think about. He’d never been overwhelmed in this way. Damon. “Damon,” he muttered, pulling him closer.

The name hadn’t been uttered but that was his name. Sneaking though all the cracks. Alaric wrapped his arms around Damon and Damon wrapped his one free hand around Alaric’s back, bucking against his ankle restraints until they were suddenly gone (Shane had to have sent someone in, but Alaric hadn’t noticed, too full of Damon, too full of Damon’s scent). He wrapped his leg around Alaric’s hips, with no hesitation.

It was wonderful.

Alaric managed to unfasten the other wrist restraint one-handed and Damon wrapped his other arm around him, until Alaric found a way to get comfortable on the narrow cot. Damon barely blinked, even as his pupils grew. He leaned into Alaric’s space, and kissed him, hard, frantic, _desperate_. Alaric had neither the will nor the want to pull away, not with Damon pressing in so close.

“Comms going blind and mute,” came a voice Alaric didn’t care about, and he tossed the earpiece aside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Here is my start. I adore this trope. Please let me know if you're enjoying it, comments are love xoxo


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting half a miracle is worse than getting no miracle at all.

Damon was asleep. Not unconscious, not zoning, he was asleep. Alaric couldn’t tear his eyes away; asleep, Damon looked so peaceful, where only hours before, he’d been flashing pain and terror and a million mixed-up emotions, unable to keep himself under control for even a moment. Alaric brushed his hand over Damon’s back, under his shirt, keeping him grounded, and watched him sleep.

He had a Sentinel.

After all of these years, he finally knew what it felt like to be home. He couldn’t wait to get to know Damon, to find out what made him tick, to start their life together. He assumed that Director Shane had already contacted the New York Center to tell them what had happened. He smiled, watching Damon’s lips fall open, watching those long dark eyelashes brush against his skin as his eyes twitched. REM. His eyelids were so delicate that Alaric could see the veins through the skin, even in the low light.

The door opened, and whoever was entering cleared their throat.

“It’s alright,” Alaric said quietly. “He’s asleep. Doing much better.”

“I can see that.” The woman smiled. One of their Universal Guides, Alaric thought; he was sure they’d been introduced, though he couldn’t remember her name. Pretty, mid twenties, long dark hair that hung in a sheet. She stood awkwardly, and seemed to remember why she was there, depositing a keycard on the table.

“There’s a suite ready for you. Freshly clean, Sentinel-safe. It’s on this level, down the corridor. S4. We’ll bring down a meal in about an hour. You must be starving.”

Alaric nodded. Yes, he was starving. Hadn’t given his stomach any thought for a while, but he was starving. He rested his hand on Damon’s hip.

“Clothes?”

“For both of you. In the closet. I think he probably needs a shower. Do you know what’s next? I’m sorry, I mean, I’m sure you do, but…”

“We’ll start working on shields in the morning. He’s too fragile tonight, and I can keep my shields up for us both until he can get the hang of it.” Alaric nodded. “Thank you. Is there a phone in the suite?”

She nodded. “I’m Guide Gilbert. Elena. Ask for me, and I can bring you whatever you need. I’m on call for the next few days, staying in an employee suite upstairs. How are you feeling? I mean, at your age… I didn’t mean to. I just know… you’re a legend around here,” she said, her lip curling. “I guess I mean this must be nice. I know you’re not old. Not _old_ , old, it’s…”

Alaric glanced at Damon’s face. “Yeah, it’s nice. And you’re fine.”

“He’s had a tough time of it,” Elena said.

“He’s strong. He’ll be alright.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” came a grumbly voice from against Alaric’s shoulder. “Did someone say something about food?”

 

 

The suite was perfect. Silent, except for the white noise generator, obviously, concealing the soft hum of the machinery that kept the air fresh and moving, so deep underground. The mattress wasn’t upholstered, just a smooth top, and the sheets were very fine and soft. The cleaning products they used in places like this left no scent. Damon padded in on bare feet, grimacing at the brightness. Despite his exhaustion, he wouldn’t let Alaric support his weight, and Alaric was left to hover.

“Dial sight down to two,” he said, with a touch of command in his voice.

Damon rolled his eyes, but did it. He didn’t make eye contact with Alaric. He looked in the wardrobe and wrinkled his nose, and then stepped into the bathroom.

Alaric felt a mild flutter of disappointment. It seemed far too easy for Damon to just walk away from him; this early, a Sentinel was usually a lot clingier. Perhaps it was the way Damon had come online. Alaric tested the mattress, and wondered about later. Sex wasn’t a given, but the way Damon had kissed him, held him, he was reasonably sure this bond was going to be completed tonight. Unless Damon was too exhausted.

He looked around the suite. It looked for all the world like a good-sized studio apartment, albeit without a kitchen — though there was a bar fridge full of drinks, fruit juices and water, mostly — except that there were no windows. A flat screen television on the wall in front of a comfortable-looking couch, an armchair, a small dining table. All in soft, neutral colors. The carpet was thick, which helped muffle sound, but it was very soft.

Alaric heard the toilet flush, and the shower door open, and then screaming, and he was on the floor in the bathroom trying to hold Damon upright and turn off the water at the same time.

“What the fuck was that?” Damon said, through gritted teeth, and angry as a cornered housecat.

“Your senses are spiking. The water must have felt like molten lava.”

“I feel like I got shot four thousand times, if that’s what you mean.” Damon struggled to his feet, and took a tentative step inside the shower stall.

Alaric couldn’t help looking him up and down. Trim and muscular, with strong arms, and an ass that could have been sculpted from marble. Alaric reached out to touch his shoulder, grounding him. Damon looked for a moment like he wanted to pull away, but he leaned in, instead.

“Dial touch back to two,” Alaric said. “You need a moment to get used to the temperature. Your senses are spiking all over the place. Are you sure you want to do this now?”

“I haven’t bathed properly in 6 days, 20 hours and 18 minutes,” he snarled. “I stink. And not just normal stink. I smell like…”

 _Terror_ , Alaric thought.

“Emotions can have a scent. Because of hormones, pheromones, a dozen little things. You’ll be able to pick between them soon, with some work. But for now… focus on keeping yourself upright, okay? Start the water tepid, you’ll be more comfortable. And…”

Alaric reached for the shower head, and switched it to mist. Less water, quieter, gentler.

“I can help you out,” he said. “Come in there with you.”

“That is legitimately the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”

The bruises on his ribs were terrible, but already fading to greens, now that his healing was accelerated. Not enough, not while he was still struggling with so much input, but he was healing.

“Okay, stop ogling me and do something about finding me some clothes, would you?”

Bravado. He was obviously stressed. It would be a hell of a lot easier to maintain control over his senses if Alaric was touching him, but Damon apparently knew very little about this world, and Alaric was already noticing that he was…

Well, prickly didn’t quite cover it.

“Scream for your life if you need me,” he muttered, on the way out the door.

“I heard that,” Damon hollered back.

“Then dial hearing back to one!”

_For fuck’s sake._

Alaric scrubbed his hand over his face — in the space of half an hour, his fantasies of a happy, blissful symbiosis had been thoroughly dismantled. Well, it was still a start. He opened the wardrobe to find Damon some clothes. They were good. Excellent. A little loose, very soft, no seams, no tags. The underwear was the same. Alaric listened through the bathroom door; judging by the spikes of panic and pain that Damon was sending out, it was still uncomfortable, but he was getting it under control. Alaric closed his eyes, and breathed deeply, sending out a shield for the rest.

He didn’t imagine the sound of relief that escaped Damon’s lips. They needed to build Damon some shields of his own.

There was a quiet knock on the door, and it opened to Elena, pushing a trolley with a pile of dishes on top.

“I’d think you had more important things to do than deliver room service,” Alaric said, with a grin, helping her to pile the plates onto a small dining table.

“I volunteered. I just wanted to check in, I guess. Is he doing alright?”

_Is he doing alright._

Alaric felt his jaw grind, and he nodded. “He’s got his, uh, sass back. So I’d say that’s a good sign, wouldn’t you?”

Elena giggled at that. “Right, have fun. I’ll leave the trolley out in the corridor and you can put the plates on it when you’re done. Someone will collect them. And, um…”

She glanced at the bed, and back at Alaric, with a knowing expression.

“Have fun,” she said again, more weightily, pulling the trolley out the door and winking as she shut it behind her. Alaric examined the dishes, wondering if Damon was paying attention to the scent or still just trying to stay numb.

“These towels are too rough,” Damon shouted.

“Dial down, Damon.”

He muttered something.

“Say again?”

“I can’t. I can’t remember how.”

“I’m coming in there.”

“Like hell you are.”

“Nothing left for me to see, Damon, stop being an enormous baby.”

“Oh, I’m an enormous baby, Mister Eight Feet Tall?”

“That’s _Guide_ Eight Feet Tall to you,” Alaric said, opening the bathroom door. Damon’s skin was blotchy, over the bruises, and he was staring in the mirror at the scratches on his face.

“Did I really do that?”

Alaric nodded. “Come here. It’ll heal in a day or two. And the bruises will be gone. As soon as you get better control over your senses and your body can focus on repairing itself.”

Alaric dimmed the light, and led Damon to sit on a small chair that was strategically placed for anyone who got overwhelmed in the bathroom; far too common an occurrence. It was covered in smooth, silky microfiber. He crouched in front of Damon, and took his hands. Damon looked deeply resentful, but this was necessary.

“Focus on my hands,” he said. Damon gave a long-suffering sigh and focussed. Alaric rubbed circles into his palms. “Think about your dials, Damon. You remember which one is for touch?”

Damon’s hands felt small in Alaric’s, delicate. They fit. Alaric pushed out with his shields. Not much, enough to let Damon focus on what he needed to focus on. Enough to take the edge off so he could focus on Alaric’s hands.

“What is that?” Damon said. Apparently for a moment he’d forgotten about scratchy towels or the fact the he was naked.

“Shields. Mine keep me from reading people in passing, and I can drain sensory input off you and into them if you get overwhelmed. And I can stretch them to cover you, if I need to. Like right now. But not for long. You need your own.”

“Once I can do that — I can leave?”

“You could leave right now. They can’t stop you, they won’t. I wouldn’t recommend it, though, because you’d probably wind up back in hospital in a few hours. Dials, Damon. _Touch_. Turn it down, just one degree.”

He could feel Damon’s struggle. He wanted to feel Alaric’s hands. He liked Alaric’s hands. Damon was, apparently, extremely tactile for someone so prickly. Like a hedgehog with abandonment issues.

Alaric let go of one hand, heart racing as Damon tried to chase it. He put the towel on Damon’s lap, and encouraged him to touch it with his free hand.

“How does it feel?”

“Like sandpaper.” But it didn’t. Through the nascent bond, and Alaric’s shields, he could feel that Damon wasn’t in any discomfort anymore.

“Liar. I’ll bring you some clothes, and then you need to eat.”

 

 

Over a huge plate of spaghetti bolognese, Alaric spoke quietly about what the next few days would involve. They’d stay here, no one else coming except to deliver food and anything else they needed, and settle this bond. Damon would learn to dial his senses up and down, learn to make his own shields — meditation, plenty of rest, he’d be alright. It was just going to take some time.

“And what then? We go back to our lives?” he said, picking at some garlic bread.

Alaric frowned.

“No, we… Damon. You get that this is… this is it. This is us. We’re a two for the price of one deal, now. I mean…”

He felt his heart stutter, and saw Damon’s brief look of alarm as he heard it. Damon glanced at his chest, and then tore his eyes away.

“Do you remember what happened when I pulled you out?”

“No,” Damon lied, like a lying liar.

“I can hear you when you’re lying, you know.”

“So that’s why they put us in a room with one bed? I’m not sleeping with you. I don’t care how this usually goes. I’m a lone wolf. Understand? I’m not joining some government funded sex cult, and I’m not looking to go all white picket fence with someone I’ve know for 13 hours and 22 minutes.”

Alaric breathed carefully.

This was not how this was supposed to go. The way Damon had kissed him — he’d thought… were bonds ever one-sided? Maybe they were. Just because he’d never heard of it didn’t mean it never happened. He could have cried, if he was that way inclined. He’d anticipated the next part of his life to be the best part. Getting know his partner, getting to know Damon’s body, all the ways that would make him love his senses…

“What’s that smell?”

 _Disappointment_ , Alaric privately thought.

“I don’t know, I can’t smell it.”

He leaned back in his chair, sated but miserable, two things that were never supposed to go together.

“Are you done with that?”

Damon looked like he wanted to keep going, but it had been too much of an onslaught, and he was tired and full. Alaric stacked the dishes on the trolley and left it in the corridor as he’d been asked.

“No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do,” Alaric said, taking another towel from the bottom of the wardrobe and heading into the bathroom to take a shower himself. “We can work with a surface bond. Once you’ve got your senses under control and you can hold your own shields, you’re welcome to leave. You might find a Guide of your own, and they can help with that here. And you can sleep on the couch.”

Damon frowned. “Why should I —”

“Because I’m eight feet tall,” Alaric deadpanned, and he headed in to shower. He didn’t want the scent of his sudden and overwhelming unhappiness to linger on his skin.

 _Half a miracle._ How stupid was that.

 

 

He wasn’t sure of the time when he woke up, but as the light in the room was controlled to brighten very slowly from the time the sun came up, he knew it was still very early. Two, maybe three in the morning. Damon was creeping into bed with him. He was obviously uncomfortable.

“Take off your shirt,” Alaric murmured.

“I told you, I’m not —”

“Skin contact will make you feel better.” Alaric tossed his own shirt aside, and pulled Damon in until his back was flush against Alaric’s chest. “Just rest. I’ll bleed off whatever’s upsetting you. Try to use your dials. You’re spiking on something. What are you spiking on?”

Damon was silent, and for a moment, Alaric thought he’d fallen asleep.

“Touch,” Damon admitted, at last.

“Alright.” There was so much input through the skin. The sheet they were lying on, the tiny eddies of air in the room, even Damon’s injuries. “Focus on me. Only on me. Identify all the input and once you’ve identified it, let it go. Ignore it. Just because it’s fighting for your attention doesn’t mean you have to let it win. This is your brain, your deal. Focus on the sound of my voice, and the feel of my skin. I’m pulling you past my shields, now.”

Dangerous, considering that Alaric was struggling to think about anything but his disappointment that this wasn’t going to go the way he’d pictured. He clamped down an extra shield over his own emotions, so as to avoid flooding Damon with them, and kept talking, quietly, running his fingers over the back of Damon’s arm, until Damon took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Try to sleep,” he said, a few minutes later, but Damon’s soft snore said he needn’t have bothered.

 

 

After a huge breakfast, it was time to get started. Alaric spread a mat over the carpet. Like a yoga mat, but closer in size to a queen-sized bed. Alaric sat cross legged on it, and patted the space in front, asking Damon to join him.

Damon glared, arms crossed over his chest, eyebrows low.

“You need to learn this.”

“And if I don’t?”

Alaric sighed. “If you don’t learn to build a good shield, you can zone on one of your senses. Basically, you’re unconscious in the exact position you were in when the sense was engaged. If you were alone, it could mean you starved to death, if no one found you. No, not starved. Dehydrated. Until you collapsed, still zoned. Speaking of which, did you finish that bottle of water?”

To demonstrate that he was actually capable of following at least some advice, Damon threw the empty bottle at Alaric’s head.

“Nice. So even if there’s someone around to help you out of a zone, if it keeps happening, you risk brain damage, heart damage. Which is why Sentinels need Guides.” He pushed up onto his feet. “And I get it. You don’t like me. This isn’t happening. I thought yesterday — I was wrong. But if we can get you under control enough to cope by yourself for a while, the Center will be able to find you someone you connect with.”

“Oh, goody, more sex-cult stuff.”

But he sat down, looking annoyed.

“No one can force you to bond. You’ll find someone you click with if you give it time.” And Alaric would go home to New York and get back to work.

He reached out, and took Damon’s hands. Damon didn’t even bother to snark.

“I’m going to take you through a guided meditation which will help you figure out how to make a shield. It’s different for everyone. Before I start, can you tell me something? What sort of a place makes you feel safe? What sort of structure? Or material? You can draw from your own life, or use your imagination. What would make a good shield?”

“Safe?”

Alaric hated the wave of misery that rolled off Damon at the uttering of that word.

“Whatever ‘safe’ means to you.”

Damon glared for a few moments, and then shrugged. “Fine. A turtle shell.”

Alaric raised his eyebrows. “That’s an interesting choice.”

“Shut up. I like the way they can pull themselves in. Are you going to criticize my happy place or are you going to get on with boring me to death?”

“I’ll get on with boring you to death,” Alaric said drily. “Close your eyes, and focus on the feeling of my hands.”

 

 

It was a long day. A fucking long day, and strangely lonely. Damon’s grip on his abilities was laughable; he came close to zoning four times, only Alaric’s voice and touch keeping him from doing so. Hearing and touch were clearly his strongest senses, and the most malleable, and the least controlled.

By four o’clock, Damon was exhausted, even after a lunch of a huge pile of sandwiches and three sodas. Apparently, the man liked sugar. Interesting. Alaric, not so much. He hated the crash afterwards.

When Damon was asleep (on the bed, wrapped up like a really annoyed burrito) Alaric called to the ground floor and asked for Elena to come downstairs. She was there in under ten minutes, dressed more casually than she had been the day before, and with a little bit of curl in her hair.

She knocked softly on the door, and Alaric came out into the corridor.

“Is there a quiet room here?”

She nodded, and led him down the corridor to one of the treatment rooms. Not the one Damon had been in, but it was identical, if a mirror-image. She turned on the white noise generator and indicated that Alaric should sit on the bed. She sat alongside him a moment later, body at an angle so she could look at him properly.

“I’m nowhere near your level of empathy and I still know you’re miserable,” she said. “What’s going on?”

Alaric scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t even know where to start. I need a few things. I assume you’ve got some minions around who can help?”

Elena grinned. “Minions. That word doesn’t evoke the same image it used to. Sure, I have people. Director Shane isn’t around, but the Center isn’t much quieter on the weekend than it is through the week.”

“But we’re the only ones down here?”

“You are.”

Alaric nodded. “First up, I need someone who knows their way around the literature to bring me everything they can find on one-sided bonds.”

Elena’s hand froze, pen over paper.

“Ric?”

“Whatever happened yesterday — it wasn’t mutual. Or maybe I mistook attraction for the beginning of a real bond. Either way… once his training is done, I’ll be heading back to New York, and my job. So on that, I need someone to let them know that I’ll be there on the 24th. Roughly.”

Elena tried to suppress the look of pity and failed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, no, please. It’s fine, I’ll be fine. It was unprofessional of me to… I just thought…”

He took a breath, and ignored the burning in his eyes.

“Alright, so, research. I also need another suite down here, because I can’t share a room with him for sleeping. I mean, I’m sitting here, about a hundred and fifty feet away, and I’m feeling _bond stress_ , which I can lecture on for an entire semester but I’ve never experienced, and I’m not prepared to make that any worse on myself when I leave. Oh, yeah, so you should probably tell my people that. There’s a doctor on staff, Jo Laughlin. Let her know I’ll probably need a couple of months’ worth of meds. And the other thing is, on Monday, when the team is in, you need to start looking for a Guide for him. He’s strong. _So_ strong. I’ve never felt anything like it. He’ll need someone to… and I’m starting to think it probably needs to be a woman. He’ll be resistant, but you know how things go. Once he meets the right one, he’ll bond. I’ll train them both together.”

Unbonded Sentinels with five enhanced senses didn’t tend to survive for all that long by themselves. Alaric’s only concern was that they might not find someone strong enough before he really started to get sick, or decided to leave and try to make it on his own. Still, he’d seen good matches between mismatched Sentinels and Guides before; if the chemistry was right, it didn’t seem to matter that one was stronger than the other.

Elena reached forward, and pressed a hand against Alaric’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Please. Don’t. Honestly, I’m just embarrassed.”

“You really shouldn’t be. I saw the tape. I thought… well, it doesn’t really matter, does it,” she said, in her breathy voice, and with a shrug.

They were silent for a few moments.

“You know, you should meet him,” Alaric said. “Maybe you would work out. You never know.”

“I don’t think so,” Elena said, scribbling furiously in her notebook. “Is there anything else?”

Alaric pondered. “Okay, yeah. Scent neutralizer. I really don’t need him to figure out how I’m feeling once his olfactory sense is under control. Right now he can’t pick between scents, but it won’t take him long. Unfortunately, my level of empathy is only going to make that worse. So.”

Elena nodded.

“I’ll get the room sorted out by dinner time,” she said. “Research will take a couple of days. I’ll get people started looking for a good match tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, last thing. We’ve never had a Sentinel with a sixth sense before. I need to know everything that’s ever been written, theorized, or just thrown at the wall about time sense. I don’t care if it sounds crackpot. I don’t care if it’s a handwritten note in the margin of a textbook, I want to read it. Because he’s still acutely aware of time, and I think it means he’s not sleeping deeply.”

The door flew open.

“What are you doing?” Damon growled, glaring first at Alaric, and then briefly at Elena, and then back at Alaric. “Do you have special dispensation to abandon me when you need time to gossip with your girlfriends?”

Well, there went that. Damon had looked at Elena and there wasn’t even a flicker.

“If you’ve slept enough, it’s time for scent drills,” Alaric said, and ignored the look of irritation on Damon’s face.

“You know where to bring the stuff I need,” he said to Elena. “Thanks.”

He followed Damon back down the corridor and back into the suite which seemed to have shrunk in a handful of hours.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think that's what they call 'mixed messages'.

Dinner was quiet.

Damon ate like he was afraid someone might steal his food, while Alaric couldn’t muster an appetite, despite his actual hunger. Elena hadn’t brought the dinner down, but she had left him a note to say that the suite opposite Damon’s had been prepared for him, along with a keycard.

“How are you feeling?” Alaric asked.

Damon grunted his non-response.

Alaric sighed. “Well, you’re definitely due some rest,” he said. The closet past the door of the bedroom had Sentinel-safe towels and sheets, and it seemed like an urgent task to get Alaric’s scent out of the room, as much as possible in the time frame. Alaric gave up on his dinner and remade the bed.

“What are you doing?” Damon asked.

“It’s this thing people do. When sheets are dirty. They change them.” He had done it often enough so that the near-military corners were instinct. “You’ve got the night off. Watch television, read, do whatever you want. The telephone isn’t restricted. You can call your family. Friends. You’re not a prisoner.”

He brushed his hand over Damon’s shoulder and opened the door. He collected the plates and stacked them on the empty trolley.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “Try to get some sleep. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. Scent and taste.”

He gave Damon a warm, reassuring smile as he pulled the door closed.

Damon was on his feet with his hand wrapped around the door in seconds. “Where are you going?” he asked, his tone definitely accusatory.

Alaric pointed at the door, and flashed his keycard. “I’ll be across the hall. If you need anything, you can knock, or dial 4009 on the phone, and I’ll be here. You okay?”

Damon frowned so hard it was as if Alaric could hear his brow creasing. Curious, he pushed his boundaries out, but Damon stepped back.

“I won’t need anything,” he snapped. “Go. Go, sleep, I don’t care.” He pushed the door closed, and Alaric rolled his head on his neck in exhaustion.

 

 

By the time Alaric had spent a couple of hours typing up his observations so far (honestly… mostly just trying to distract himself from the dual demons of embarrassment and disappointment), he was starting to feel unwell. Definitely best to try to speed through it, as much as he could. He took a couple of valerian tablets and a dose of melatonin, and made a cup of herbal tea with several weak ingredients designed to make a person sleepy. It did nothing for his nausea, and nothing for the headache, but at least, he hoped, he’d get some sleep.

And he did. It wasn’t very restful sleep, but it was sleep, and the headache would ease up as soon as he crossed the corridor to join Damon.

He picked up the phone and dialed Damon’s room. The call was answered on the first ring.

“House of pies,” Damon drawled.

“How are you, are you okay?” Alaric asked. Sassy or not, Damon didn’t sound very happy, or very well rested.

“Peachy, without your snoring waking me up every three minutes.”

Alaric nodded, gritting his teeth. “Alright, good. Take a shower, if you can manage. We’re working on scent again today, since that’s probably the sense you already have the best grip on.”

Damon didn’t answer.

“I’ll see you in half an hour or so,” Alaric said. “Let me know when you’ve eaten breakfast.”

The phone was silent again, and finally Damon let out an exasperated sigh. “I will. Good. This should be a nice, peaceful meal for once.” He ended the call. If the phone had been the old-fashioned kind, Alaric thought Damon probably would have slammed down the receiver.

Alaric sighed, and gritted his teeth, and shoved down an uncharacteristic flash of serious irritation, which he assumed he’d inherited from his reluctant charge. Alaric briefly let himself wonder exactly how much meditation it was going to take, back home, to regain his equilibrium. He’d be useless to anyone else, feeling this irritated. Maybe he’d take a week or two off. Might be sensible, to wait out the worst of the bond stress, as well. And it wasn’t as if he wasn’t owed some vacation time.

Alaric opened the door to an efficient-looking young Guide; low level, but friendly, and quiet. He passed Alaric a plate piled high with breakfast food, and coffee, and a couple of bottles of fresh juice, and Alaric sat down to tuck in.

 

 

He wasn’t expecting to see Damon looking quite so pale and miserable when he arrived. Damon was sitting on the couch, shirtless, trying not to touch anything, his breakfast barely poked at on the table.

Alaric felt terrible.

“You should have come to me,” he said, taking his shirt off, and dropping to a crouch in front of Damon. “You don’t sit around suffering like this and not tell anyone. I’m here to look after you. I thought you understood what we were doing here. Until you can manage on your own, Damon, you need me.”

“Then why did you leave last night?” Damon snarled. His eyes were rimmed in red, and the scratches on his face weren’t healing as quickly as they should have. He was shaking, faintly, though in the last minute or so some of the color had returned to his cheeks.

Alaric took his hands, and rubbed circles into his palms, but Damon was fidgety and resistant. So Alaric sat alongside him instead, wincing when Damon essentially jumped him, flattening him to the couch cushions with a quiet growl, adjusting himself until his ear was resting against Alaric’s heart. Almost instantly, Alaric felt his shields move, inviting Damon in, bleeding off the worst of the overload. He wasn’t zoned, or Alaric might not have found himself on the receiving end of his hurt anger. He was just overwhelmed, and uncomfortable, and hopelessly underprepared for the changes in his life.

Between Damon’s inability to keep himself under control, and Alaric’s bond stress, they were quite the pair.

“What’s wrong with you?” Damon asked. He sounded more curious than annoyed, which was a start. He adjusted himself again, getting comfortable against Alaric’s body. “You smell sour. Not badly. And your heart is… was… beating shallowly, or something.”

“Bond stress,” Alaric said, with a shrug, running his hand soothingly over Damon’s spine. “I’ll be alright.”

“Bond stress.”

“It happens when you start to bond with someone and then separate before the bond is completed. Or when you’re fully bonded and forced to separate for too long. Like I said, I’ll be alright. But that’s why I took the other room. Because if you don’t want this — and yes, Damon, no need to re-emphasize it, _I do get that you don’t want this_ — then you can’t get used to relying on someone as strong as me 24-7. And I need a rest from you so I don’t go back to New York next week feeling like I got run over by a truck. I’m sorry, I know you probably don’t want to hear that, but you need to, because sooner or later you’re going to need to find a Guide you actually like, or you’re likely to die within eighteen months. Maybe a couple of years.”

“Thanks for sugar coating that. Much obliged.”

“You have to understand how serious this is. I’ve asked Guide Gilbert to start looking for someone for you. I think it would be better if we can match you now, so I can work with both of you.”

“I feel fine now. And I don’t want a Guide. The whole system is creepy.”

Ugh, he wasn’t even listening.

“I’ll just rearrange the laws of science to accommodate you, then. In the meantime, you need to eat. It’s alright. I’ll maintain contact. You’ll be okay.” Alaric was too tired to argue, and too relieved to be feeling better. He sat by Damon’s side, hand rubbing comforting circles against his shoulders, as Damon resentfully began to eat.

 

 

The following night was even worse, and not worth describing in detail. Alaric was going to have to ask for meds or something. He could barely sleep, barely resist the urge to cross the corridor and take Damon in his arms, hold him or worse, just fuck him stupid until he was sated and happy and resting in Alaric’s embrace. But all he could do was lie in bed and wonder if Damon was alright, if he’d do the right thing and ask for help if he needed it.

It didn’t seem likely. Alaric wondered if he was doing the wrong thing by not checking on him, but in the end, he decided the bond stress was already going to kill him when he went home and he didn’t want to make it any worse.

He did, however, eat breakfast with Damon. Silently, watchfully, and pretending Damon wasn’t resting his foot on Alaric’s like he’d settle for six squares inches of skin contact as long as he didn’t have to acknowledge it.

“We’re going to need to get all your dials down low. You’re going to be meeting Guides, starting from one o’clock today, and it’s on another level, closer to the ground floor. It’s not as quiet as it is down here.”

“Do you listen when I talk,” Damon started, “or do you just nod and ignore me? I think I told you I don’t want — or need — some freaky keeper. I’m not doing it.”

“Here’s the thing.” Alaric pushed his plate aside. “You say that now, but you look like hammered shit, and it’s only going to get worse.”

“You look even worse,” Damon growled. For a second, Alaric would have sworn he saw a flash of protectiveness, but it was only wishful thinking.

“No one is gonna force you to bond. I told you, Damon, you’re not a prisoner here. You’ve got as much right to leave here, or not accept a bond, as you would to refuse life-saving medical treatment. And the result is likely to be similar. So. You meet them, you see if you feel anything. If you do, we try a couple of experiments to see if you could be a match, and if there’s nothing there — there’s nothing there. Look, I know you don’t know this world, and you don’t want to.”

“Got that right.”

“But when you meet your Guide, it’s an amazing feeling. I’ve seen a lot of matches start. You feel this way now, but once you’ve met them, you’ll feel differently. I promise you that.”

Damon rolled his eyes, and then, in case Alaric hadn’t seen, did it a second time, with sound effects.

“I don’t want you to die because you’re too stubborn to give this a shot. So. You need to take a shower, and so do I. Then it’s an hour of meditation, and we’ll start drills with your dials. And then, after lunch, we’ll head upstairs. Okay?”

“I won’t bond with any of them,” Damon said flatly. “But if you feel okay about wasting everybody’s time, then fine, I’ll do it.”

 

 

Damon was looking considerably more zen, after a few hours of skin contact, a little practice building his still-weak shields, and the work it took to dial down his senses, one by one. Alaric still had no idea what to do about time, but he had to do something, because Damon’s awareness of it was making it difficult to focus on meditating for long enough to do what he needed to. Sinking in, accepting, letting things flow, they were all essential to meditation. Knowing it had been exactly three minutes and fourteen seconds since you last mentioned this was boring didn’t help.

But he seemed okay. Alaric suggested a slightly less ‘lounging around in yoga pants and a smirk’ look, wardrobe-wise, and after a phenomenally bland lunch (nothing that might spike his senses) they were escorted by Elena to the second-level basement.

The space was stylish, decked out in neutral colors like the rest of the Center, the focal point being a large waiting area with soft seating. Still, Damon flinched at the sound of the streets above, at the brightness of the soft lights. Looked like he might decide against coming out of the elevator at all, but Alaric rubbed his hands over Damon’s upper arms, grounding him, and he stepped cautiously out onto the floor.

There was a small reception desk, corridors in three directions, and people coming and going quietly. All either Guides, or staff without extra senses. Elena led them to the interview room, and Damon growled at it, which was mildly endearing and mostly annoying as shit.

“They’ll start sending them in, in a few minutes,” Alaric said, indicating that Damon should take a seat on a low armchair. “Just sit and breathe, and center yourself. Okay? Just for a few minutes. And open your mind. This will be a lot easier if you can match with someone today. And I can get out of your hair as soon as you’re working well with them.”

“So do you skulk in the corner like a brooding oaf, or does the person audition on their feet?”

“I can’t be here,” Alaric answered. “It’ll muddy your impressions. You can’t tune me out right now, when we’ve been in each other’s pockets for days.”

“Oh, I wasn’t aware I had a pocket in the other suite. Fine. I need a break from you anyway,” he said, pushing Alaric out the door — he might, briefly, have gripped Alaric’s bare forearm, but the moment was over so fast it might have been nothing at all.

Alaric scrubbed his hand over his face and headed to the vending machine. He wasn’t going to try to go any further, in case something went wrong — he didn’t trust Damon not to zone on the lights in here, or the sound of an unfamiliar voice. He sipped the strong, bitter black coffee as women started to arrive, stopping at the reception desk and taking their seats in the waiting area. Some obviously weighing up the competition, others getting immediately friendly, a few recognizing old friends, all optimistic. He sent feelers out. No one A grade or higher. Mostly B grade, a couple of Cs. All extremely pretty. He sent further feelers out towards the room where Damon was sitting, preparing himself.

To Alaric’s surprise, he seemed to be fairly calm. Not thrilled, but calm. That meant there was a chance of this working.

Some of the girls were staring at Alaric. He hated the way his reputation preceded him. He knew what they were thinking; a Guide of his level, unable to bond, he obviously had something terribly wrong with him.

The older woman at the registration desk sent the first girl in, and a couple of minutes later, she came out, looking disappointed, but knowing she just wasn’t a fit. Alaric finished his coffee, and paced, watching as the fifth and then the sixth came out, said goodbye to the friends they’d recognized, or fleetingly connected with, and heading for the elevator. More than one commented sadly that Damon was _gorgeous_.

“Ric,” came a voice, and Alaric grinned as he turned around.

“Elijah,” he said, with a nod, reaching out to shake Elijah’s hand.

“Your lack of formality is always refreshing.” Elijah had his almost sly, amused smile on. And a suit that probably cost half of Alaric’s annual salary, Sentinel-safe but tailored for him, beautifully fitting. He didn’t miss Alaric giving him an appreciative once-over.

Alaric had been a temp Guide for Elijah a number of times. He worked for the FBI, and when a case became particularly grueling, the Bureau’s Guides weren’t strong enough to help him push himself quite to the level of perception he needed. So Alaric was called in.

And, if Alaric was honest, those jobs had never been a hardship. They worked well together, and had good chemistry. He’d wondered briefly if bonding was a possibility. But despite a couple of long weekends of extremely athletic and enthusiastic sex, it clearly wasn’t to be. Didn’t stop them making the most of the basic attraction from time to time. If it was possible for them to choose, he would have chosen Elijah a long while back, and he thought the feeling was probably mutual.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Elijah shrugged. “I’m in town on a case. Director Shane made arrangements for me to be here to meet someone.”

“Any luck?” Alaric asked, knowing full well what the answer would be. Elijah shook his head, and Alaric gave a rueful nod.

Elijah looked around the room. “I heard about the…”

“We’re auditioning guides,” Alaric said. “Apparently, a lot of them lead secret double lives as fashion models.”

“I was surprised. I heard a rumor… well, rumors. They’re not to be trusted.”

“You heard a rumor? I’ve only been here since Saturday. But no. He’s made it very clear he’s not interested.” He felt the urge to explain that the bond had been one-sided, but the thought of it was still humiliating, and Alaric still didn’t understand it, let alone want to discuss it with someone as well put-together and at ease as Elijah.

“You know how gossip works. No fun at all unless it moves quickly. I’m sorry for the news, though. Will you be in town long?” Elijah asked, his voice velvet, his accent impossible to place. He took a step forward, and glanced from Alaric’s eyes to his mouth and back again. He looked hungry, his intention clear. “If you’re in need of a little distraction before you head back east, you know I’d be more than happy to oblige.”

And: _fuck_ , yes. That would be fantastic. Might even help with the bond stress. Alaric smiled broadly and nodded.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll call when I have a better idea of ——”

Alaric’s sentence was cut short, and he stumbled back, uncomprehending. Elijah was on the ground, covering his bleeding nose, and Damon was about to go in for another punch.

“Mine,” he growled. More than once, as he pulled his fist back. Elijah was bigger, much bigger, and stronger (the fact that Damon had managed to lay even one blow was impressive), and without the element of surprise going for him Damon had no chance of making his second punch land. Elijah gripped his arm, eyes still remarkably calm, and very curious,though, knee to his sternum and one hand gripping his hair. “ ** _Mine_**.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are solutions. None of them are very attractive, but there are solutions.

“Damon! What the hell are you doing?” Alaric shouted, too shocked to push much in the way of command into his voice. “Stop that!”

The girls on the chairs were beating a hasty retreat to the back wall, looking on in horror, and the receptionist hit an alarm, high pitched and painful even to ordinary ears. Damon fell back, elbows pressed hard to the sides of his head and screaming horribly.

“Christ, Damon,” Alaric said, crouching on the ground between the two of them, one hand on Damon’s forearm, the only place he could reach skin, doing his best to siphon off some of the input, while he reached for Elijah, trying to get a sense of the damage. Damon stopped struggling.

“Turn the alarm off,” Alaric hollered, and the receptionist did so, immediately.

Damon had zoned. Completely limp on the ground, eyes slightly open, pulse down to below 30.

“What the hell was that?” Alaric said. “Fuck. Sorry, excuse the… but _fuck_.”

Elijah climbed up onto one knee, sniffing the air between Alaric and Damon, and looked at Alaric with amusement again. Tinged with perhaps a little disappointment. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to his nose.

“I think that’s what they often refer to as _mixed messages_ ,” he said drily.

Alaric’s heart pounded.

It made no sense. Damon hadn’t been remotely ambiguous in his rejection. But while Sentinels in general were protective of Guides in general, he’d never seen, or heard of, an unbonded Sentinel resorting to violence in defense of a Guide they weren’t bonded to. Which meant it was time to re-evaluate this entire horrible mess. Or perhaps turn tail and run home, leave someone else to deal with it.

Alaric rubbed his temples, and glanced up at the receptionist, who was hovering around Elijah, trying to tell him to visit the hospital wing. He waved her off. It wouldn’t take longer than a day for the bruises to fade completely, less if he spent some time meditating later.

“You have called someone to collect this Sentinel, yes?” he asked the woman, climbing to his feet, flashing irritably on the droplets of blood on his shirt.

“Yes, they’re on their way. Sentinel Mikaelson… I’m sure the Director will want to talk to you himself. The Center doesn’t want to alienate…”

Elijah waved her off. “Don’t trouble him, or yourself. This was a marvelous piece of intrigue. I’ll take my leave. I do suggest you keep him away from any other Sentinels for a while,” he said. “And keep other Sentinels away from his Guide.”

Elijah stopped to give Alaric a fond look he knew amounted to ‘goodbye, my friend’.

Alaric shook his head helplessly as Elijah walked away, and the orderlies came in with a gurney.

“Isolation ward,” he said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

 

 

“Okay, Damon. Focus on me. The sound of my voice, and the touch of my hands. You’re safe. It’s quiet here. Go to your control room,” he started, hands moving over Damon’s forearms as he began to pull him out. Tracing his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw. His hands.

It took less than three hours for Damon to emerge, blinking and confused.

“What happened?” he asked. He sounded drunk.

“You zoned on sound after attacking another Sentinel.”

“Oh. Whoops.”

“Yeah, whoops is right. You don’t remember? You gave him a nose bleed.”

“My bad,” Damon slurred unrepentantly as he rolled over and snuggled in against Alaric’s bare chest, before falling into a deep sleep.

Alaric felt his heart tear, and hastily threw up some additional shielding around his emotions. He was hurt, he was miserable, and he was angry. At himself for falling so hard for someone who couldn’t even stand him, at the world for robbing him of the bond he’d always dreamed about, and at Damon for not being able to make his fucking mind up one way or another. They needed some solutions, and they needed them soon.

Alaric looked down at Damon’s sleeping face, his fine profile and messy black hair. The powerful shoulders and delicate eyelashes. It had only been a few days ago that they’d been lying in this exact position, and Alaric had thought his life was about to change forever, and now there was no where in the world he wanted to be less.

 

 

Alaric managed to wake Damon for long enough to get him back to the suite, and into bed, and while he would have loved to ignore the feeble grab at his arm and let Damon sleep alone, he didn’t have the self-control — or the self-preservation instincts — to do it. He let Damon sleep, ear pressed against his heart. It was instinctive behavior. Sentinels could find their Guides by the sound of their heartbeat and Damon may not have understood that he was imprinting in this way, he was still doing it.

It had been years since Alaric had heard of anyone breaking a bond, but it was possible, and it was going to be necessary, unless Damon miraculously changed his mind. Alaric let his mind wander, imagining it. How painful it would be, and how everything he did in the meantime was only going to make it worse.

“Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it,” Damon grumbled, tightening his hold on Alaric’s arm as he shifted. “You smell terrible.”

“You know the solution to that.”

“I’m not sleeping with you. Do I need to put it in writing?”

“I mean use your fucking dials, Damon. Do you actually want to die? Is that what this is all about? Do you like pain? Honestly, Damon, have you made an effort to learn anything from me at all, in the last few days?”

Damon dragged himself into a sitting position, frowning, sneering, barely controlling his rage. “Do you understand that I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t want it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Because I didn’t ask for it either. I wanted to be a fucking professor of American History, before I came online at fifteen. And then once I’d accepted that there was nothing I could do about it, I set about getting myself excited over the idea of finding a bond. All around me, I watched people find each other, recognize each other, fall in love and build these fucking fairy tale romances between them, while I stayed the freak who came in really handy when someone was in trouble, but was obviously not built right for anyone to connect with on that level. So yeah, Damon, I know something about disappointment, and resentment, and not having control over my life. Are you hungry?”

He dragged himself out of bed and checked the time. It was a little early, but the sooner they got the dreaded evening meal out of the way, the sooner he could lock himself in the other suite and start trying to detox — again. He wondered if Elena would sneak him a bottle of something highly alcoholic, and then decided she probably would, and then she’d be in trouble, and Alaric would feel like crap about it.

Alaric reached for the phone, and his shirt, calling ahead for their meal to be brought down.

He ignored the look of utter loathing on Damon’s face. It didn’t bear thinking about.

 

 

He wasn’t surprised when Elena was the one to arrive. She obviously wanted to check on them, and chatted away quietly, not acknowledging that Damon was curled up in the corner of the couch glaring at a cushion that was apparently an especially offensive shade of bland, while Alaric was pretending to read the small sheath of papers she’d brought him that morning.

“I thought you’d probably both be hungry,” she said. Her voice had a rich, husky tone, laced with stress that Damon had apparently picked up on. He sniffed the air, realized what he was doing, and then shut down again. “I brought a really good dessert, if you want. Do you need anything else?”

Alaric glanced at Damon. There was apparently no point in pretense, at this late stage of the game. No need to sneak off to a quiet room.

“Yeah. Thanks, Elena. Tomorrow, I need you to bring me a copy of the protocol on platonic bonds.” Damon’s head snapped around, and he glared so hard that Alaric wondered if his head might crumble into ash. “And on breaking bonds. Damon and I have a lot to figure out, and I’ve never been involved in either of those. So.”

Elena looked stricken, and the look of pity on her face was awful. She stared at Alaric for a long time, and then turned her gaze to Damon, who (if it was possible) actually looked like he was getting angrier.

“I think Director Shane will be available to talk tomorrow,” she said, though what Alaric heard was ‘you fucking crazy son of a bitch, don’t do anything stupid until you’ve spoken to Atticus’.

“Only if he thinks it’s necessary. Thanks, Elena. And for the dessert. I’m sure it will be very nice.”

He and Damon didn’t say a word, as they each plowed through a huge serving of risotto, with mashed potatoes and green steamed vegetables on the side; two kinds of starch was hardly haute cuisine but it definitely helped to settle the glucose levels. Damon was careful not to so much as bump his foot against Alaric’s, nor make eye contact, and when he was done he pushed the plate aside with a grunt before returning to what was apparently now his favorite place in the suite to scowl: the corner of the couch.

Whatever. Alaric wanted the dessert. He removed the silver lid from one of the small plates. It was cake; fairly simple, a vanilla sponge with butter cream.

“What’s a platonic bond?” Damon said. Almost spat, actually. Despite the tension headache Alaric had decided to nickname ‘Damon’ he nodded.

“They’re not common. Asexual bonded pairs, close friends, even occasionally cousins or other family members do it, if they find a suitable bond and a sexual relationship isn’t on the cards. It’s a ritual that can settle the imprint and get people working together without the… complications of. Well.” He nodded in the general direction of the bed.

“You don’t want that,” Damon said, flatly. “I can smell how badly you want me. It took me a while to separate that scent out, but I know it, now.”

He was going to need to start remembering the scent neutralizer, or risk putting Damon off for good. “It doesn’t really matter what I want, right now. I’m trying to find the option that keeps you alive, ideally without making me sick in the process. And if you don’t want a Guide at all, then the best option might be a platonic bond. Temporarily. I can stay for a few weeks, a few months, until you’re functioning okay on your own, and then we can break the bond.”

It would be hell for both of them, if they got that far, but at least Damon would only be battling bond stress, and not sensory overload on top of it.

“I hate this,” Damon said, pulling his knees up close to his chest, staring at nothing, chin resting on his knee.

Alaric looked at the cake again.

“It’s not all bad,” he said, carrying the plate across the room, to sit on the coffee table. “Close your eyes.”

Damon glanced dolefully at him, looking ready to argue, but apparently decided he was all out of fight for the day. He sighed like a long-suffering beagle and closed his eyes.

“Dial scent down to one,” Alaric said, and Damon actually looked like he was trying to focus. ‘Trying’ being the operative word. His jaw shifted beneath his skin and his hand shot out to land on Alaric’s leg; he seemed annoyed by the barrier of cloth, so Alaric put one of his own hands over the top, and pushed out a little of his shields, letting Damon rest against that extra buffer.

“One,” Damon said flatly.

Alaric broke off a piece of the cake, and brought it right up to Damon’s nose. “What can you smell?”

Damon shrugged. “Cake. I don’t know. _Fuck_.”

“Dial up to two.”

Again, Damon seemed to be trying to do as he was told. He sniffed again, and licked his lips, focusing, but also apparently struggling with his sweet tooth. It was probably more than he was prepared to concede, at that moment, that he wanted anything at all. “Alright, _fine_. Vanilla. Butter. Something else.” He cocked his head.

“Dial up to three.”

Damon shifted where he was sitting, body tense, but he didn’t open his eyes, or complain, or even remind Alaric for the six thousandth time that he wasn’t going to sleep with him, which made for a nice change of pace.

“Orange,” he said, surprised. “No, orange _oil_. Like you can smell when you peel an orange with your thumb. No, _mandarine_ oil. And almonds.”

Alaric smiled. That was good. That was impressive, actually; even when someone found scents like that, it wasn’t always a given that they could identify them.

“Where is your dial?”

“Three. I can count. I’m super smart at one to ten. Went to nursery school and all.”

“Push through four, to five,” Alaric said, not rising to the sarcasm. “No higher. I don’t want you to zone again.”

Damon shrugged, though Alaric thought he saw an embarrassed hint of color in his cheeks. He didn’t bother arguing that it wouldn’t happen, at least.

Damon wrinkled his nose.

“Gross. _Flour_. And… I don’t know, chemicals. Baking powder or something. That’s nasty.”

“Down to three.”

Alaric could have sworn he saw Damon roll his eyes, through those delicate eyelids.

“You see, it’s about finding the right level for the job. Where’s taste?”

There had been a lot of roast garlic in the risotto. Alaric had already noticed Damon was a fiend for it. He’d probably dialed up unconsciously, just for the thrill of the slightly sweet, slightly bitter flavor on his tongue.

“Three.”

“Okay. That will do. Probably about right for this. Leave scent where it is, because they work well together. Where’s touch?”

Damon looked like he was planning to lie, but shrugged. “About six.”

“That’s much too high. You can’t be feeling that comfortable.” It was becoming more apparent all the time that that was the sense Damon struggled to keep control of the most. They needed to do some work on it urgently. “Down to one, and then when you’re comfortable, up to two.”

Damon shuddered, but found his way. Alaric frowned; it actually looked like the scratches on his face were improving over the way they’d looked this afternoon. Maybe it was only the low light.

“When you’re ready, open your mouth. It’s a small piece of cake. I’ll put it on your tongue, and then you can close your mouth. But don’t chew, okay?”

Damon took a breath, and seemed to relax again, even if he was forcing himself. Eventually, he opened his mouth.

Alaric did exactly what he said he was gong to do, almost painfully careful not to touch Damon’s lip with his finger. Damon closed his mouth, and waited.

“Feel the texture. The cake, and the butter cream. Feel them melt on your tongue. Each texture is different, you feel that? The cake dissolves into a soft, sugary sand, and the buttercream is velvety. And then focus on the taste. You found mandarine oil. Can you separate that flavor from the butter?” Damon couldn’t answer, but his expression had evened out, and it looked like he was starting to understand. He nodded slightly.

It was one of the most erotic things Alaric had ever seen. Alaric checked in against his emotional shields, making sure he wasn’t communicating that particularly inappropriate observation.

“Think about the relationship between the flavor and the scent. The flavor and the texture against your tongue. If you want to, you can shift your dials a little bit, and see what happens, how it changes. Not too high, or it will start to feel really alien. Just to see.”

At some point, Damon’s hand had shifted until he was gripping Alaric’s. Alaric hadn’t even noticed, but he closed that hand, with its elegant fingers, tapering at the tips, into both of his own. His thumb moved over Damon’s inner wrist, one part reassurance, one part support.

Damon swallowed, and a moment later, he opened his eyes. His pupils were dilated, but he didn’t blink against the low light.

“It’s not just about keeping yourself healthy,” Alaric said. “You have so much to learn, and so much to experience. When I listen to the way Sentinels talk about the way they experience the world I’m so envious I could break something. Guides only ever get to experience it second hand… not that that isn’t an amazing experience in itself. I can’t imagine being normal.”

He hated that word, but it seemed to fit, sometimes.

Damon said nothing, for a long time. Just thinking.

“So you just… do this. Go from Sentinel to Sentinel, help them to sort the crapfight in their brains, and leave again?” Damon asked.

“That’s about it, yeah,” Alaric replied. Unconsciously, he’d started to really knead at Damon’s wrist, and Damon was looking calmer than Alaric had ever seen him with his eyes open. “Do you think you can sleep?”

Damon didn’t answer. “If we do this — the platonic bond thing — what’s it like to break it?”

“Hard,” Alaric said. “There’s medication, and the Center will help out with temp Guides when you need one — Elena’s like me, a Universal Guide — but it won’t be a lot of fun. You’ll need to do a lot of meditation, work hard by yourself. There are plenty of unbonded Sentinels in the world, and it’s your decision, if that’s what you want. I have to be honest, it’s not usually Sentinels anywhere near as strong as you are who make that choice. Usually people with… two, maybe three enhanced senses. But it really is your decision. And Damon…”

He felt sick, ignoring the pain it caused in his chest to say this.

“I really think you should stay in touch with the Center. Let them introduce you around. Finding your Guide is a magical experience, and I want it for you.” He paused, and gave a weak smile. “When you’re not being a complete shit.”

Damon gave him a sly little smirk in response.

“So do you think you can sleep?”

Damon pulled his hand away from Alaric’s, and nodded sharply. Alaric ignored the flash of pain as the contact was severed. He stood up, and left the cake on the coffee table. Maybe Damon would eat the rest. Alaric really, really didn’t want to leave him on his own so soon after a zone, even if he seemed to be more content than Alaric had seen him. He dreaded the feeling he knew would hit as soon as he made his way to his own suite.

As if he’d read Alaric’s mind, Damon’s hand shot out to grab his wrist.

“This…” he waved in the direction of… well, Alaric didn’t even know where, but he was gesticulating. “This stupid bond stress crap, which by the way is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard — if we do the… platonic bonding thing, will it get better?”

Alaric nodded. It would, for Damon at least.

“Part of the problem is the fact that it’s only half there,” he admitted. “Look, you don’t have to make a decision now. Elena’s bringing a copy of the protocol in the morning. We can talk about it like the sensible adults I know I am and you can be. Alright? And the decision, in the end, will be yours.”

He waited until Damon had let go of his wrist, and turned to the door.

That night was actually marginally less bad. Probably because Damon was more settled, not spiking everywhere. It was a start, anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Damon's choice, and he has a right to it.

The next morning, Alaric woke early. He spent an hour and a half meditating, mostly clearing his head of superfluous things like desire, things that were making Damon uncomfortable and getting in the way of progress he could cope with.

Afterwards he stepped into the bathroom, switched the shower head to its most severe setting, and spent a good forty minutes scrubbing his body with the unscented products. He dried himself thoroughly with a clean towel he then dropped down the laundry chute, following it with his sheets, and dressed in a clean set of clothes, a freshly laundered set of the same soft gray shirt and yoga pants he’d been wearing for days.

He opened the door to a knock, and an unfamiliar, low-level guide brought his breakfast to the small dining table.

“Guide Saltzman,” they said, with a nod. They looked young, soft androgynous features pleasant and gentle, short and slim with big, dark eyes and short-cropped, glossy hair.

“Please, call me Ric,” Alaric said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Guide Villicente. I heard you were quite informal.” Alaric couldn’t place the accent, but he suspected it was a long-faded Italian one. Italian via Britain, maybe. “You can call me Jack.”

“Jack. Thank you. Is that for me?”

Jack passed over a manila envelope, regretfully. “I hope you don’t mind me speaking out of turn,” they said. “But this… I hope you don’t go through with this. It’s a tragedy. A platonic bond can be wonderful, but to plan ahead to break one? It goes against everything the Center stands for.”

Alaric gave a rueful smile. “No, it doesn’t. Come on, there’s a principle higher than that.”

“Service?” Jack suggested. Alaric raised his eyebrows. “Agency,” Jack said, with a sigh.

“Thank you for the breakfast, and the information. I hope you get a chance to make a good match soon.” It was the closest thing Guides had to a blessing for each other.

Jack nodded, and wheeled the empty trolley out to the corridor. Alaric ate alone, and then dialed through to Damon’s suite.

“I’ve eaten,” the gruff voice said, and the call was terminated.

Alaric stepped back into the bathroom and carefully sprayed himself with the scent neutralizer. That was as much as he could do.

 

 

The day actually gave Alaric some hope. Not for a true bond, but at least that Damon was starting to accept that he couldn’t manage on his own. He listened to Alaric talk through the protocols for forming a platonic bond, and for breaking a bond, and though he didn’t look exactly thrilled (actually, he looked utterly miserable, but not combative, which didn’t exactly feel like progress but certainly made him easier to work with) he seemed to be paying the attention such a serious topic warranted. Alaric sat on the coffee table again, careful not to overwhelm. He didn’t reach out to touch even once, though he caught himself trying.

“So,” he said, almost clinically. “Taste first. I take a really bland piece of food — like a communion wafer, or something — I press it against my tongue, and then you eat it.”

“Gross,” Damon said. “Ew. Uh, no. Also, you’d better not have cooties. And I already kissed you, isn’t that enough?”

“No, it’s not, because the bonding is… it’s a whole thing. Discrete. That was a kiss, it wasn’t a bonding. Besides, you were a mess, you weren’t paying attention. Can I keep going? If it’ll help you to let me finish explaining, I’m more than happy to gag you.”

Damon shrugged.

“Next, we work one step at a time to get through hearing and touch. You put one hand on my heart and the other on a pulse point — probably my wrist, rather than my throat.” Less intimate, though he didn’t bother to say so. “You get a firm sense of my heartbeat, and then we bring sound up in the room and you have to find it again.”

That, Alaric thought, would be easy. Damon had already shown a proclivity for lying with his ear on Alaric’s heart. He could probably do that now, but he had meant what he said; the whole thing needed to be achieved in one go, or the whole imprint would be fragmented.

“Touch doesn’t need to be any more than that, but that’s where I seem to ground you best, so…” Alaric looked over the page, mouth curled in concern. “Probably easier if you close your eyes and focus on my hands for a while, I guess. Safer, and I know you’re not uncomfortable with that.”

He ignored the daggers shooting out of Damon’s eyes.

“You’re not going to love the last part. Sight and smell. We lean close, touch foreheads and noses, and hold eye contact, breathing each other’s air.”

“Gross. You’d better deal with your morning breath. This is so weird. Do we have to have two witnesses and a public notary? Because no, thanks.”

“It’s private,” Alaric said, his jaw grinding. “And then we finish with a meditation designed to make sure you can put the whole picture together, and can find me. And I can feel you, bleed off excess emotions or distress, shore up your shields from a distance, all of that.”

It sounded like such a cold ritual, to achieve something so intimate. Alaric knew it worked. But it worked when people didn’t have a sexual attraction, and this, this felt like settling. In the worst sense of the term.

Damon was silent for a few minutes. “When do I have to decide?” he said, at last, sounding younger, and unsure of himself.

“We’re on your schedule,” Alaric said, with a shrug. “But the sooner the better.” Time for a change in subject. “Are you ready to work through a touch drill? I think you really need it, because you’re not keeping a lid on touch at all. But I don’t want it to be uncomfortable. This is rough, I know.”

On himself, as well as Damon, but no need to be specific. He held tight to his lessons. _Be gentle, be kind, be coaxing, not forceful._

Damon stayed scrunched on the couch. Alaric glanced at the barely ruffled bedsheets and concluded that he’d probably slept there as well. Good thing the suite had been sanitized while they were upstairs the day before.

The scratches on Damon’s face had almost disappeared, but the circles under his eyes were getting worse.

“It’s fine,” Damon said. “What do you want me to do?”

“You know what? You’re tired. You’re stressed, you’re not sleeping properly. How would you feel about a massage? We can work on your dials while I work on the knots in your muscles.”

Someone a little more clueless might have thought he had ulterior motives. But this wasn’t going to be fun. Alaric had his shields up, firmer than he had for the last several days. All business. He knew perfectly well that he had no real choice but to work on shutting down his own emotions, his attraction. He was as centered as he could be after a washing protocol and a long solo meditation and he was going to do his best to keep in mind that he was only acting as a temp Guide.

Damon stared at him appraisingly for a few moments, and then shrugged.

“Fine,” he said.

There was a massage table tucked into the hall closet, alongside the shelves full of sheets and towels and Sentinel-safe cleaning supplies. Alaric set it up, and fetched two bottles of massage oil.

“Where’s scent?” he asked Damon, who was perched on the corner of the dining table, watching Alaric set up.

“Eight.”

Alaric frowned. “That’s way too high, Damon, why are you up there?”

“Because I can’t smell _you_. You did something ridiculous to yourself. I thought about punching you, but I knew you’d be a baby about it, so I didn’t.”

“I’m making a very chivalrous attempt to keep you comfortable. Now stop being a complete brat and dial down to three. One step at a time.”

“You smell like a _new car_. No, you smell like a car freshener that is supposed to smell like a new car but actually smells like highly concentrated boredom. What did you do?”

“Damon. I am trying really fucking hard to make this easy for you, and it would be really great if you reciprocated by not making it hell on me. I’m trying to make you more comfortable. Do you understand?”

“Are Guides really supposed to swear at their Sentinels?”

“You’re suddenly _my_ Sentinel? I’m empathic, Damon, so whatever bad mood I’m in, I’m getting it from you. Like the fucking measles. Now dial down.”

Damon shot him a baleful look, but closed his eyes.

“Seven,” Alaric said. “Six. Not being able to smell me should make you a lot more comfortable in here, and give you a chance to make up your own mind. Five. Four.”

“Three,” Damon said, with his eyes still firmly closed.

Alaric opened both of the bottles. One was an unscented apricot kernel oil, the other a coconut oil with a rich, sweet scent that Alaric loved. “You can choose. The coconut might get overwhelming, but —”

“Coconut,” Damon said.

Apparently, he was used to a full-body massage, or perhaps he’d seen one on television once. Alaric hadn’t actually expected him to slip out of his yoga pants and underwear, but he averted his eyes while Damon got comfortable on the table, face settling into the hole at the head of it and arms at his sides. Alaric placed a carefully folded towel over his ass (one of the five hardest things he had ever done — Christ, _that ass_ ).

Alaric warmed some of the oil in his hands.

He’d undertaken a course in remedial massage shortly after taking an official appointment as a Universal Guide. It often helped to pull a Sentinel out of a zone, to create enough of a bond to start working on controlling senses, and for a Sentinel who was lonely, isolated, and in pain, it was often the best remedy for what ailed them. Alaric thought of all the Sentinels he’d worked with over the years who had lost their Guides. Touch-starved and helpless against the onslaught of sensory input from everywhere else. Regular massage from a Guide, even without a bond, was often what kept them from falling apart, until bond stress started to dissipate, along with their overwhelming grief.

And honestly, Alaric liked it. Virtually all Guides were pretty tactile people, and Alaric counted himself among those who found it easiest and most effective to work with touch. It made him happier, too. And he couldn’t deny it had come in handy with his occasional lovers. But right now, it was a therapeutic touch he used.

“I’m starting with your shoulders. Are you still at one on touch?”

Damon grunted; Alaric had to assume it was assent. He began to work the oil into the tense muscles, smiling to himself as they began to soften under his hands. He took his time. Needed to, if he was also going to focus on keeping his heart rate completely steady, which wasn’t easy. He summoned the sense of peace he’d felt earlier when he’d stepped out of his meditative state.

He worked for a good fifteen minutes, listening to Damon’s breath even out. “Okay. This is still an exercise. Think about last night, working through your dials with the cake. You can experiment. You need to, in order to understand those levels. I won’t be prescriptive. You can dial up and down as you want to, but please don’t go above five, or the heat of the oil will start to get really uncomfortable.”

He was moving further south, now, moving over Damon’s back, carefully, slowly, over his spine, alongside that unbelievably delicate-looking collection of vertebrae, down to his hips. He didn’t think he’d ever come across anyone who held as much tension in his hips as Damon did, but he tried not to focus on it. Heart rate a steady 50.

As he hit the edge of the towel, he reached for the bottle again, and warmed a little more oil in his hands. He returned to the head of the massage table.

“How are you doing?”

“Three.” He sounded stoned out of his head.

“No, _how_ are you doing?”

Damon hesitated. “It’s nice.”

Wow. That was the most ringing endorsement Alaric had heard since he’d arrived in San Diego. He started on Damon’s arms. Upper arms, and his shoulders again, and then his forearms. If they’d actually managed an intimate bond, he would have liked to wash Damon’s hair, massage his scalp.

“I want to move down to your legs, Damon, but I know that might be too much. I can just do your calves, if that’s more comfortable.”

Damon tensed for a second.

“No. It’s alright. Do what you want. Do what you think will help.”

“Are you still cycling through dials?”

“Touch is at five. Scent is at three. Time is at ten because _it’s always at fucking ten_ but for the first time it’s actually not unbearable.”

Alaric really needed to understand time better. It seemed like such a fucked-up sense to have enhanced. No more long, glorious moments that stretched out because you were enjoying them so much; no more days that passed in a blur because you were busy. It couldn’t be easy. Still, the idea that this time was being spent pleasantly? He couldn’t hate that.

“Your heart rate just sped up,” Damon said.

“Okay, you really need to stop paying attention to that, at least until you’ve decided what you want to do about this bond. Where’s sound?”

“Six.”

“One step at a time, we’re taking it down to one. And then I need you to find something else to listen to. The white noise machine in the ceiling is programmed to sound like rain. Once you get down to two, start ignoring my heartbeat and focus on the rain. Five, Damon. Four. Not too fast.”

Damon was silent for a long time, as they moved down, while Alaric massaged the stiffness out of his surprisingly strong thighs, and then, at long last, his calves, which were tighter than Alaric might have guessed.

He glanced at the time. It had been two hours. Which Damon, obviously, knew to the second.

“How’s the control on that dial?”

Damon said nothing, but he seemed to make an attempt to move. Alaric rubbed circles into his back; apparently, that was the key to calm.

“I don’t know. Better. How can I really know when you’re here?”

Alaric ignored the sudden bitter tang in his throat. “I guess you can’t. Do you need to sleep for a while?”

Damon made a supreme effort to get up onto his elbows.

“Yeah,” he admitted. He tried to sit up, but he seemed… drunk. Touch-drunk, Alaric realized. For the first time, he started wondering about Damon’s life before this had happened. He hadn’t made any kind of effort to contact anyone on the outside, there was no record of living family, no contact information at the local hospitals; Damon probably led a very solitary existence. Pity he wouldn’t open up, so Alaric could get a sense of what kind of support structure he had, what Alaric would be leaving him with.

“Come on. I’ll help you to the bed and leave you for a while.”

Damon let himself be manhandled to his feet. Apparently not caring when the towel hit the floor. Alaric did his best not to notice the lack of modesty. Heart rate 50 and stable.

“Would you just stay?” Damon said, exhausted.

_Fuck._

“Of course,” Alaric said, pulling a chair up to the bed and getting comfortable.

Damon’s baleful look suggested that wasn’t what he meant. But he crawled between the sheets without another word. Alaric reached out to brush his fingers over the back of Damon’s neck, and in moments, Damon was asleep.

 

 

Alaric tossed and turned, feverish and miserable for hours. He clambered to the bathroom and threw up the remainder of his dinner, and on, and on until it was nothing but burning, thick bile. He was barely aware of the cold cloth pressed to his forehead. He was grateful for it, distantly, but he had no idea who had brought it to him, or how they’d known how bad he needed it.

“Ric,” Elena said, in her quiet, husky voice. “We have to get your fever down. I have meds, but they’re no use to you if you throw them up. Can you hear me?”

He grunted.

“Do you think you could keep some water down? I can inject you, if it’s better. Start a fluid IV and glucose, and get the meds in that way.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

Elena made soothing noises, and replaced the cloth with a new, colder one. When Alaric rolled away from the disgusting stink of the toilet bowl, he saw Jack’s shoes, and closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to press his forehead against the cold tiles.

“Damon left,” Elena said.

Alaric felt tears burn his eyes.

“You know we couldn’t stop him. It’s his choice.”

“I know. I told him that fifty times. I just thought…”

“We all did,” she said, dully. “I’m so sorry. Can you take the meds?”

There was nothing left in Alaric’s stomach to throw up. He accepted the two bright pink pills and the bottle of water Elena had in her hands, and gave Jack a nod; they were obviously upset and confused, but determined to be stoic. Alaric stayed exactly where he was for an unfathomably long time, and then accepted the help to get back to bed.

Elena sat on the edge, with yet another new cloth. Cold and wet.

“I know you have… a connection with Guide Mikaelson. I could ask him to come.”

“No,” Alaric said. “Thank you, I know you mean well but I’m heartbroken and humiliated and I need to be alone. Thank you, both of you. I’ll need to see a doctor in the morning and then make arrangements to get back to New York. Can you take care of that?”

Elena stood up. “Of course,” she said, her voice thick with empathy. Not just her voice. Alaric’s shields were in tatters. Elena felt sorry for him, and he could feel it like a brand. At that moment, she was hoping she never bonded, and that was just fucking tragic. Jack, only feet away, thought it was Alaric’s fault for anticipating a bond that he was already planning to break.

He couldn’t stand either set of emotions.

“You need to go,” he said. “I have shields to build and I need to fucking sleep. Send someone to Damon’s apartment to get it properly cleaned so he doesn’t zone. Send a Universal Guide to get him settled. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He was barely aware of the click of the door before the meds dragged him under and he was gone.

 

 

Getting home wasn’t going to be uncomplicated.

Alaric was sicker than he thought, and despite the assurances that Damon was now in a Sentinel-safe apartment and had been gifted with all the right cleaning products and toiletries, he felt sick with panic and loss. He struggled to eat, despite his hunger. He slept shallowly, sweated through pajamas and sheets and anything else that came close to him. He threw up so frequently the meds barely had a chance to work.

Day four, he started to feel better. Director Shane came to visit, looking disappointed.

“Don’t give me that fucking face. I’ve been in this job for fifteen years and I’ve had exactly one failure. I tried. I did everything I could. Just screen some Guides, send them to his place, see what happens. I have to leave, Atticus. I can’t stay here. I need to get as far from him as I can, and though my plan is New York, right now I’m genuinely considering Australia. Or Antarctica.”

Atticus shook his head. “No. I know you did. And I keep telling myself that we have to let people choose. It just seems like such a wasted opportunity.”

“That’s pretty cold-blooded.”

“I know. What can I tell you, I’m an academic at heart. You can’t travel like this, Guide Saltzman… _Ric_. I’ll arrange a private jet. It might take me another couple of days, but I have contacts. If you’d prefer, they can sedate you.”

Alaric gave it some thought. Either the bond stress would get worse by the mile, or he’d wake up in full withdrawal. Both sounded terrible. He decided to call Jo, get her take on it.

More than the illness, more than the disappointment, more than the humiliation, he missed Damon. His presence in the room, the feel of his skin beneath Alaric’s hands. Alaric’s only shot, and there was nothing he could do to claw it back.

“Can you just go?” he asked Atticus.

“Of course. Look, I’m sorry things worked out this way. Yes, I’m cold-blooded, but I have respect for this institution, and for you. I wish things had worked out differently even more than I wish I knew why things worked out the way they did. I’m commissioning work on one-sided bonds and on the possibility of a sense of time. I’ll be in touch about it if I need your help.”

He crossed the room and opened the door, and Alaric balked.

“No, look. Okay. I know I can’t travel like this. I’ll accept the offer of a private jet. And I’d like to be sedated. If you can get someone to contact Jo Laughlin in New York and get her to prepare a withdrawal protocol, I’ll leave on Monday or Tuesday. If that’s convenient.”

Atticus paused at the door.

“Consider it done,” he said.

 

 

Alaric wasn’t expecting to wake up on Monday morning feeling marginally better. In truth he couldn’t think of a single reason why he would, since he’d lost virtually all faith in the medication. He knew it was cumulative. He just hadn’t expected it to kick in that quickly.

He headed out to the ground floor, dressed in his own clothes, and slightly less shaky. He wasn’t expecting to see Elena, nor feel the fierce hug she offered him. It had been days since he’d touched anyone, since he’d touched Damon, and it felt so good he might have cried for the second time in twenty years.

“Can I take you to lunch?” she asked.

“Only if the serves are generous, and I can have the glass of wine I’ve been owed for days.”

“I know just the place,” she promised.

An hour later they were tucked into a comfortable corner of a beer garden in the Gaslamp Quarter, waiting for their food to be delivered, and talking amiably about their lives. It transpired that Elena had a brother who was a three-sense Sentinel, working for the police department in the town where they’d grown up, bonded to a low-grade Guide and expecting his first child any day. Sentinels were common in the family — as common as they could be, considering the rarity — but Elena was the only Guide, and she laid out a sad little tale of a teenage girl who had left her baby on the steps of the local doctor’s office when Elena was only a day old. She didn’t seem fazed by it, but Alaric could feel a brief throb, when he sent out feelers. Elena wished she could ask that woman why she’d been left behind.

Alaric stabbed at the huge fisherman’s basket in front of him. Fish, shrimp, calamari rings, and scallops. Plus enough chips to sink a freighter. His stomach was still unsettled, despite being so hungry he would theoretically have liked to eat an entire shark, as long as there was hot sauce on hand. He forced himself to eat.

And then he stopped forcing himself. And just ate.

Jesus fucking Christ he was hungry. He methodically ate through the entire thing, almost forgetting Elena was there, and when the waitress came to take the plate, he asked for another.

“The same again? King-size?”

“Yes please,” he said.

Elena quirked an eyebrow.

“I think the meds are kicking in,” he said. “Seriously, I still feel like shit, but my appetite is back, and I feel… is this usual?”

Elena shook her head. “No, it’s not. It usually takes a couple of weeks for them to work properly. Are you… okay?”

Alaric checked his periphery. His main shield was up; he couldn’t feel anything much from the people around him, except for a very drunk guy who was thinking about kidnapping his dog from his recently-ex girlfriend.

“Yeah,” he said.

It was interesting, going from the feeling of genuinely being unsure he wanted to survive this at all to feeling suddenly mostly settled. He relaxed into his chair, and picked up his drink. Maybe it was the alcohol. This was only his second glass of wine, but it had been a couple of weeks, now.

“Shit,” he said. “Maybe they won’t need to sedate me. I wasn’t —”

Alaric felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up, into Damon’s furious, frantic face.

“What are you so upset about? I could smell you from the other side of the city,” he growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this! Once again, please do let me know if there's anything you'd particularly like me to explore, once the terrible angst has passed (which you know it will, because you guys know me; no point in hurt without comfort).


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It might just have been the setting that turned Damon off.

“I’m gonna leave you to it,” Elena stammered, getting to her feet. “Call me later about arrangements, alright?”

And she was gone.

Alaric sighed as Damon took her place on the other side of the table, and reached out to snag some of his chips. Like that was a thing they did. Steal chips off each other’s plates. He looked like he was doing his damnedest to look nonchalant, but he wasn’t exactly selling that. Alaric should have realized sooner that this was about to happen; after all, the best treatment for bond stress was being close. Feeling better as the afternoon continued meant absolutely nothing except that Damon had been stalking around in the background.

“What are you doing here?” Alaric asked. He felt tired just thinking about having to separate again. Starting from scratch.

“I told you. You’re like a…” He made a gesture with his hand that suggested a beacon or strobe or something. “I could feel you from miles away.”

Alaric sighed. “You know we have to start again, now, right? As soon as you leave, we’re both gonna be sick again in no time. So… thanks, I guess, because that probably means I can’t head home on Monday. Much obliged.”

Damon frowned. “You’re leaving?”

“You sound surprised. We need to stay as far away from each other as possible. And not to labor the point, Damon, but _you left first_. In the middle of the night. Presumably to avoid cooties off a communion wafer, so. Don’t make that face like I’m betraying you here.”

Damon stole another handful of chips, and when the waitress came back with Alaric’s second serve, he flashed her a brilliant smile.

“I’ll have what he’s having. And the wine, too. This is your treat, right? I’m broke.”

Alaric nodded at the waitress, and didn’t bother to argue when Damon took a piece of his battered fish and dunked it in the tartare. He looked reasonably relaxed. Or perhaps he looked like he was trying to look reasonably relaxed. His blue eyes flashed around the street side seating, and his hair looked once again like birds had been nesting in it, although now it seemed more likely that it was thanks to the liberal application of some kind of hair product (Alaric wondered for the first time if those sorts of things came in Sentinel-safe varieties, and reasoned that they had to. It was 2017, after all, there had been plenty of time to figure it all out).

“Everyone leaves,” Damon said, with a shrug, and without glancing at Alaric. “Which is exactly why I prefer to be on my own.”

Alaric watched a flash of something painful cross Damon’s face.

“They got your place sorted out for you okay?”

“Okay, let’s play a game where we don’t talk about anything boring. This fish is amazing. So what do you do, Ric?”

Alaric took a sip of his wine and shrugged. “You know what I do.”

“No, I know what your job is. I assume you don’t usually work around the clock. You get downtime. What do you do?”

This was what he wanted to talk about? Alaric shook his head. It was embarrassing, how long it took him to come up with an answer to that.

“I, uh… I read. I run. A lot. I do have friends. Some people actually enjoy my company. I know that’s probably hard to believe.”

“Your company is fine.”

A compliment. Sort of. Probably as close to a compliment as Damon ever gave.

“What do you read? Oh, no, don’t tell me. I bet it’s all biographies of martyrs through the ages. I bet you’ve got a whole section on self-sacrificing Guides.”

Alaric snickered. “No, no. Actually, I really don’t like biographies. To tell you the truth, mostly, I read shitty genre fiction. You know. Cop stuff. Mysteries. Supernatural mysteries. When it’s time to shut down, I like to do it properly.” He didn’t want to add that the books he loved the best were the ones with a Sentinel and a Guide, working together, loving together. That would probably count as boring. “What about you?”

“I’ll read any fiction you put in front of me.”

Alaric had a sudden image in his head of Damon spread out on a cheap couch, surrounded by too many books, stacked high in front of the inadequate shelving in his apartment. He smiled, and Damon gave him a sly look. Maybe it was a memory of Damon’s.

“You smell a lot better like that. You really run? I hate running.”

“I’ve always loved it. That, and boxing. I think they keep me sane, sometimes. Burn off the excess energy, all of that.”

“You box? Hot. You got a pair of those little silk shorts that leave nothing to the imagination?”

“I don’t compete. So, sweats, you know.”

“That’s a damn shame. Not that your ass isn’t perfect in a pair of gray yoga pants, but I think that’s a wasted opportunity.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he said, feeling his cheeks warm slightly.

He hoped Damon wouldn’t object too much to the fond look. He didn’t seem worried. He set upon his own lunch with gusto, as soon as it was delivered, but after several days of saying very little (at least, very little that wasn’t dripping with sarcasm or designed to make Alaric feel like shit) he didn’t seem interested in shutting up, now. About jobs in bars and on construction sites, about wishing he still had a piano, about San Diego having great live music, about his ugly flat (he seemed to enjoy complaining about that, actually, with a little fondness, and there had to be a reason he’d lived there for so many years). He had no idea why he’d chosen San Diego, no interest in telling Alaric why it had just seemed like a good idea to get as far away from the family business as he could, even if it meant he’d been cut off from what sounded like a significant amount of family cash. He waved off Alaric’s aborted question about it.

He barely mentioned friends, but there was an implication that such people existed; ‘ **we** _were at a bar and this old guy starts playing guitar in the corner, and_ **we** _found out he was the lead singer of a blues band in Louisiana in the seventies_ ’, ‘ **we** _go to this Greek place in El Cerrito, kind of a dive but cheap and tasty if you can put up with college students trying to one-up each other over whatever they’ve read the Cliff notes of this week, which isn’t hard once you’ve got a stomach full of lamb and feta and you’re a little bit drunk_.’ His storytelling had a distinct rambling quality to it which Alaric found he liked, along with the jazz hands and spirit fingers. Not something he’d seen before, all the days they’d shared in the Center.

Damon had undone the work of the first, what, five and a half days of separation, but by the time they’d finished eating, and were onto a third glass of wine, Alaric’s irritation about it had faded to nothing. Damon was lingering disinterestedly over the dessert menu and, unless Alaric was mistaken, working hard to keep his shields up and his dials low. It couldn’t be easy, out here, with the noise and smells of the street, bright sun glinting off of windows and the tops of cars. But Damon’s pupils were small, so he had at least some control. He flinched at a car horn. Alaric reached across the table, and with relief on his face, Damon tangled his fingers in with Alaric’s. To Alaric’s surprise (partly because it was a very personal thing to do, for someone who was resisting intimacy, and partly because it suggested better control over his shields than Alaric assumed he’d have at this point), Damon let his shields merge with Alaric’s, and sat calmly, looking over the busy street, letting the sensory overload flow to Alaric to be burned away.

He was quiet for a few moments, relaxing against the back of his chair, eyelids lowering a little as if he might fall asleep. Alaric wished he could hear that heartbeat, like Damon could hear his. How much he was struggling to keep things under control. His eyes fell to Damon’s mouth, and unbidden, memories of that kiss slammed through his head, and Damon looked up, with a knowing smile. Probably the scent of arousal. Alaric blushed again. He’d thought he had a better grip on his feelings than that, but it had been a hard week.

Damon didn’t look annoyed, though, and he didn’t pull his hand away. Alaric tamped the memory down, and drew a little on his depleted resources to build up his emotional shields. He couldn’t help but notice that Damon didn’t seem as irritated by the whole thing as he had been before. The scowl he’d worn so much of the time in the Center was replaced with a smirk that suited him far better.

Alaric slipped his hand out of Damon’s, and reached for the check that the waitress had discreetly placed by his elbow so he could pay, and get out of there, start the whole ugly bond stress and withdrawal cycle again.

“Come on,” Damon said, tugging on the sleeve of Alaric’s jacket, when they were back on the street. He didn’t make eye contact, but closed his hand around Alaric’s upper arm, just above the elbow. His hand felt warmer than it had, and Alaric automatically brought his forearm up, catching Damon’s hand against his ribs.

“Where are we going?”

“Do you know San Diego at all?” Damon asked.

“I’m here at least six times a year.”

“Hmm. Yes. The _Cen_ ter, the hotel across the road from the _Cen_ ter, and… let me guess, there’s a nice little cafe down the street from the _Cen_ ter that does a really great Reuben.”

Alaric grinned, trying not to and failing spectacularly.

“That’s not entirely inaccurate. But the nice little café actually does a great rare roast beef sandwich with horseradish.”

“Ew. Gross. Do you kiss all your patients with that mouth?”

“First of all, Sentinels aren’t patients. Second, no, that doesn’t usually happen.” Alaric followed Damon onto a trolley car, feeling awkwardly tall and out of place, but pleased; Damon was right. Not only did Alaric know almost nothing about a city he probably spent two months a year in, he rarely spent much time in any of the cities he visited. He might go to the effort of finding a running trail. Much more likely, he’d use the gym in his hotel, if they had one, or at the Center. “Where are we going?”

Damon shrugged, but Alaric didn’t buy that he didn’t know what he was doing. Or where they were going.

The streets had just begun to get busier, by the time Damon tugged him off the trolley. Time for most of the city to finish work and head home. The sun was still high, the weather was still warm, and Alaric felt pleasantly drowsy as he followed Damon through the streets.

“You look pretty determined for someone who doesn’t know where we’re going.”

“I know where we’re going. We’re going to my favorite bar.”

More alcohol. Probably not the best idea, but whatever, fine, Alaric was technically on sick leave already and if he was hungover tomorrow it would only be in competition with the renewed bond stress. He felt a flicker of alarm from Damon as a car screeched, and then backfired, and his hand settled across the back of Damon’s neck for a moment. Just instinctively seeking skin contact. Damon didn’t shrug him off; if anything, he might have leaned into the touch, preened a little.

He pointed here and there at landmarks Alaric would usually have forgotten in moments (‘ _I got into a fight on that corner. I sure hurt that guy’s knuckles with my teeth_ ’ and ‘ _I bought a typewriter at that pawn shop, and then I remembered I can’t write, just read. It’s sitting on a shelf making me look smarter_ ’), but suspected he would remember this time. Damon seemed to be talking just to talk, with fewer of those rough edges and little barbs, a self-deprecating sense of humor that did not, in any way, belie the razor-sharp intelligence he apparently preferred to keep under wraps.

It was, of course, entirely possible that he _was_ just talking to talk. He might have been trying to drown other things out.

“This way,” he said, leading Alaric into a dark bar. Outdoor seating beneath an awning was almost empty, this early in the evening, and Alaric would have liked to watch people go by, but Damon was starting to look a little bit overloaded. So Alaric followed him to a tiny corner booth.

“That’s better,” Damon said, rubbing his head. “I’m a bit…” He shrugged, and reached for Alaric’s hand, under the edge of the table. “I think you’re probably a bourbon guy, when you let it all hang out just a little bit. When you take the pole out of your ass for cleaning.”

Alaric snorted, and took Damon’s hand in his own, thumb rubbing over his palm and then the inside of his wrist. Damon let out a little murmur of relief, and when the obviously familiar bartender approached, he simply put up two fingers.

“You know… not that I’m not enjoying myself,” Alaric said. “And I am, because when you’re not shooting daggers at me, you’re good company…”

“Oh, no. You’re going to say something boring. How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“What?”

“This is me, trying to change the subject. Roll with it. I’m guessing… seventeen. And she was older.”

Alaric shook his head. “You don’t think that’s a little personal?”

“Oh, I think we’re way past _personal_ ,” Damon said. “A few days ago you dragged me naked out of a shower and then proposed.”

Alaric spluttered, and frowned. “I did not propose!”

“I’m paraphrasing, obviously.” He took the glass that had been deposited in front of him. “So? Am I right?”

He looked like butter wouldn’t melt between his thighs.

“I was seventeen. But she was the same age as me, and a friend. Can I just say one thing?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m gonna. The more time we spend together, the harder it’s going to be when I leave. You do understand that?”

“Yes, I think you’ve explained it in about eight different ways.”

“Then why are we…” Alaric didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, and being this close to Damon, genuinely just enjoying himself, was a little intoxicating. Their hands, where they touched, seemed to sparkle with warm energy.

“Ugh. Ugh! Was I not clear on the subject of boring conversations? This is a _date_. We’re getting to know each other. In a less than sterile environment where you’re not the boss and I can drink as much as I want. Okay? I realize that you were hatched from some sort of egg in a lab somewhere but most people weren’t. And locking someone up in a basement is almost the least romantic way to find out of you like someone that I’ve ever heard of.”

“Almost?”

“I watched a season of The Bachelor. It wasn’t pretty.”

“Right.” Damon had started gesticulating again as he spoke, releasing Alaric’s hand, so Alaric crossed his arms on the small table and smiled, feeling his eyes crinkle. “Got it. Not romantic. I’ll pass your feedback on to management.”

“Do,” Damon said, primly, raising one eyebrow as he drained his glass. “But. It turns out when you’re not yelling at me about _dials_ and _shields_ and _bond stress,_ you’re decent company. Even if you do run, which _I_ still think is unnatural, but whatever. You don’t read biographies, I’m willing to bet you can cook, and you’re not hard to look at.”

“Aw. You like me.”

“Don’t be disingenuous. I might think the whole Sentinel-Guide Stockholm situation is creepy and gross but I did punch out another Sentinel for smelling like boner and getting in your face. There’s obviously something here.”

Damon’s eyes dilated, just slightly, and Alaric felt a hum of arousal that he quickly realized was coming from Damon, not himself. That was interesting.

“So, it’s a date. Let’s talk about something boring for a minute. Why are most bonds sexual?”

“Oh, wow. That’s boring?”

“It’s the least boring of the…” Damon made spirit fingers, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. “No, sex isn’t boring, if you’re doing it right, but I want to know. The whole spit-on-a-wafer thing is obviously extremely disgusting, but I doubt that’s the only reason most people knock boots instead.”

“You don’t spit on… okay.” It would have been easier to stay annoyed if Damon wasn’t so charismatic, and so obviously trying to get a rise out of Alaric. And so obviously succeeding. “Okay.”

He leaned in a little closer, as the bar was starting to get rowdier, and someone had turned the volume up on the music (an old Eric Clapton album, which was a nice surprise).

“Sex is… no, _can be_ , completely immersing.”

“ _Should_ be,” Damon supplied.

“No. I don’t think so. I mean, as someone who hasn’t been in a relationship in years, and generally has sex to scratch an itch — it can just be fun. But it can be completely immersive. A Sentinel has enhanced senses. A Guide has enhanced empathy. Sex creates a sort of feedback loop, and the more senses involved, the better. A Sentinel can touch someone, map their skin, learn the places that make them shiver.” Thinking about it, talking about it, picturing it — Alaric felt a sizzle down his spinal column, a twitch in his pants. “Taste them. Taste their skin, breathe their scent. Scent and taste are so closely linked, you know, and just burying your nose in someone’s throat, pressing your tongue against their pulse…”

 _No, not you. A_ Sentinel _. Keep it impersonal, even if it isn’t._

“Listen to _their_ heart beat, feel that rhythm through their entire body, listen to them breathe, listen to them… _beg_ , or murmur, or groan. And _look_ at them, really look at them, the way their skin flushes, the way their pupils dilate, the way their skin looks, pressed against yo… _the Sentinel’s_ ,” he corrected, carefully. “And then link the senses. Know them better than anyone else can ever really know a lover. This perfect imprint. And the Guide can feel that, take it in, feed it back. I’m told it’s hard to be sure who is touching who, sometimes. Like every touch is echoed, somehow. Every sound.”

 _He’d heard_. Hadn’t managed anything close to that intense, ever, even with Elijah.

He smiled, and drained his glass, trying to catch the eye of the bartender, because he could feel Damon’s heavy gaze on him and didn’t really want to know what sort of expression might go along with it. The bartender nodded, and brought the bottle to their table, topping both glasses up without bothering to measure.

“And then?”

Alaric did look up, then. Damon’s expression wasn’t irritated, just curious. And focused.

“And then a Sentinel can find their Guide anywhere. Pick their heartbeat out of a crowd. Like I explained. The Guide can help them dial all the way up without zoning, keep them calm, drain off anything that’s overwhelming them.”

“And what does the Guide get out of it?”

Alaric smiled. “Plenty.”

Damon didn’t break eye contact for a long time, but eventually, he shrugged. Not the most persuasive shrug, not with the emotion Alaric could feel through the fragile bond.

He drained his glass, and stood up. Alaric assumed he was expected to do the same. Damon waved to the bartender, who nodded back, so it seemed pretty likely Damon had a running tab here. Alaric elected not to ask. He also elected not to ask where they were going, just let Damon bump into him every few moments and steer him a couple of blocks from the bar. Damon unlocked an unobtrusive door with a swipe of a fob, and led Alaric to an elevator bank.

“It’s nice,” Alaric said, though he was definitely being a little generous. Despite a fresh coat of paint the lobby (for what Alaric assumed was Damon’s apartment) was shabby-looking and old, with a faintly musty smell which obviously made Damon uncomfortable. Alaric was about to step closer and suggest he work on his dials, but Damon shook his head.

It was a good thing he had the willpower to go along with that kind of strength.

“Gorgeous,” Damon deadpanned. “Modeled after a grand palace somewhere in the Middle East, I forget which one. I don’t know why the doorman isn’t here.”

“Is the neighborhood safe?”

Damon shrugged. “Is any? And do you know most violent crime is perpetrated by someone the victim knows?”

The stepped into the elevator.

“You don’t trust people,” Alaric said.

“Nope. And I’m not being dramatic. I have my reasons.”

“I bet you do.”

Damon lived on the fourth floor. Alaric recognized the almost dead scent of the mild cleaning products that the Center had come over with, which somehow meant the scent of the books was so much stronger in the living room. He had a corner window close to the trolley line, and busy with cars even now. Loud, and definitely bright for a good part of most days.

This wasn’t an ideal apartment for a Sentinel. And meditating here would be difficult.

“Rude. I can feel you judging my hovel from here.”

“It’s not a hovel.” And it wasn’t. It was shabby, but clean, and not just recently. Damon was house proud, for someone without a whole lot of house. Alaric crossed the room to the bookshelf, and realized immediately that this was exactly what he’d imagined. Which meant he hadn’t imagined it at all; it was Damon’s memory, tossed across their bond, which was rekindling rapidly.

Alaric couldn’t believe he’d spent most of the last several days and nights trying to sleep and stop throwing up. He felt so settled and content now.

“I like it,” he said.

“Where do you live in New York?”

“Midtown,” Alaric replied. “Close to Central Park. I’d prefer Brooklyn, but my place is close to work.”

He took his jacket off, and laid it over the arm of the couch, peering more closely at the books. He’d wager a guess most of them were bought second-hand. He was about to take one down that he’d read himself when his phone rang.

“It’s Elena,” he told Damon. “Guide Gilbert. They probably think I’m unconscious in a gutter somewhere. Do you mind?”

He indicated the door to the tiny balcony, and Damon shrugged. Alaric closed the door behind him, hoping Damon wasn’t rude enough to listen in, and knowing he was probably going to anyway.

“Hi,” Alaric said.

He didn’t miss the relieved sigh. “Hi, Ric. I just wanted to make sure… you didn’t come back. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but he thought… maybe. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Okay.” She was silent for a few moments. “Do you want me to send someone to get you? I don’t want to assume… It’s just that I know you’re not going to be able to get back here by yourself.”

Behind Alaric, the door opened. He felt Damon step in close, felt a hand slip up under his t-shirt. Warm with intention. Alaric closed his eyes as those fingertips skidded over his spine.

“Tell her _no_ ,” Damon purred.

“I’ll be alright,” Alaric said, biting his lip. “I’ll call if I run into trouble.”

Elena was silent for a long time, but Alaric barely noticed, as Damon’s hand made its way around to his stomach.

“Be careful, Ric,” she said, and ended the call. Alaric closed his eyes, feeling his limbs go heavy, and put his hands on the railing, her words echoing in his ears.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DVDs of The Sentinel arrived. I'm looking forward to watching them. I'm also kinda interested in turning this upside down and have Guide Damon heal with Sentinel Ric. Maybe in a more canon setting. What do you guys think?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon gets with the program.

Alaric slipped his phone into his pocket and turned part of the way towards Damon, not letting himself make eye contact, which would definitely be the end of any self-control he was still clinging to. But Damon crept around, slipping under Alaric’s arm and wedging himself between Alaric’s body and the railing. The sky was finally beginning to get darker, and Damon’s eyes were the brightest things Alaric could see.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice sounded breathy and unfamiliar. “Damon…”

Alaric’s hand found its way to Damon’s cheek. Probing gently, trying to get a sense of what was in his head, if he was doing this because he wanted things to be easier, or because he wanted to be here.

“You know what I’m doing.”

“Do you know the consequences? Do you understand what you’re asking for?”

“No, because you’ve only explained it thirty-five times.” Damon pushed Alaric gently inside, closing the door behind them, before slipping his hands up under Alaric’s shirt and licking his lips hungrily. Alaric felt his lips tingle with want, and he had an arm around Damon’s waist, and another across the back of his neck, before he could say ‘ _maybe we should talk this to death some more first_ ’.

It would have been one thing to break a platonic bond. They were no weaker than a sexual bond, ordinarily, but only if it was what both Sentinel and Guide wanted; in this case, it never would have been satisfactory, and life would have been very difficult. So close, but so far away. But if they did this — and if the heat in Damon’s eyes was anything to go by, his very strange stealth date, the way Alaric felt suddenly so perfectly in tune with him suggested that he wanted it as badly as Alaric did — then this, this would be a very strong bond, and breaking it would be difficult, and painful, and might be the end for them both.

All of these were excellent reasons to slow down.

They paled in comparison with all the reasons not to.

That first kiss, days ago, desperate and sloppy, had felt amazing, tied up as it was with possibilities and wonder. This, though. _This_ kiss was all need. Alaric tasted the remnants of the bourbon in Damon’s mouth, when Damon parted his lips and hauled him closer. Like burned honey.

“Come to the bedroom,” Damon said, already pulling his own t-shirt over his head, while Alaric struggled to do the same. “I want to look at you.”

It wasn’t the rush to be naked, per se. It was the rush for skin contact, knowing how good that felt for them both. Knowing how right it felt. Alaric felt his shields strain determinedly for Damon, wanting to enshroud them both, and let Damon drag him through the tiny apartment.

He’d seen Damon naked; seen him _more_ than naked, seen him vulnerable and zoning and in sensory overload, but this was different. As Alaric dragged his hand over Damon’s chest and felt, more than heard, his answering moan, he shivered. He let his hand go lower, pressing against Damon’s cock, through his jeans, and Damon rolled his hips and growled.

They stripped efficiently, eyes on each other, unwilling to stop touching for even that long, but recognizing that shoelaces and socks were better handled by the person wearing them. In moments, they were stretched out on Damon’s bed, Alaric’s leg slotted up between Damon’s and his arms bracketing Damon’s head. Damon reached for him, pulling him down into another kiss, this one deeper, hotter, more languid. He was struggling to keep his eyes open, and Alaric smiled into his mouth.

“Roll over,” Damon growled. “I want to touch you.”

Alaric acquiesced fondly, lying back to let Damon explore. He was inquisitive and tender, fingers learning every ridge of muscle and bone, following the paths of his fingers with his lips and his tongue, shivering with need; Alaric realized their shields had completely merged, and he could feel Damon’s desire, and his control, the careful way he’d let his sense of touch dial up, and scent, not so much he could get overwhelmed, but enough so he could absorb everything to his satisfaction. For the most part, Alaric let him, watching him worry at his skin with his teeth, marking him randomly (common enough between bonded pairs, especially in the beginning, and in times of stress). Alaric knew he’d wear little black bruises and considerably larger love bites for a few days, and he didn’t mind. He loved it. The thought of spotting those marks in the mirror, the thought of someone noticing. The idea of feeling so owned.

“You smell so fucking g ** _ood_** ,” Damon murmured, as he tongued at the flesh beneath Alaric’s belly button, and lower, buying his nose in tightly curled pubic hair, tongue darting out to tease at Alaric’s cock before he went even lower, nuzzling against Alaric’s taint and tasting the skin there until Alaric cried out.

“There, you sound good, too. I feel strange.”

He didn’t seem to need a reply to that; he’d found the leaking tip of Alaric’s cock and was tasting him experimentally before sinking his lips down, and Alaric had to hold himself in check to avoid fucking that beautiful mouth.

He tangled his hand in Damon’s hair, though, encouraging, until Damon seemed to sense (… probably _did_ sense, some hormonal shift or the sound of Alaric’s balls swelling, perhaps) and he pulled off, looking wrecked. His face was flushed, and his eyes were bright, pupils dilated and the silver ring around them almost iridescent in the fading light.

He moved lower, tasting Alaric’s thighs, the back of his knee (Alaric could have come from that sensation alone, if he hadn’t closed his fingers hard over his shaft, unwilling to do so yet) and down to his lower legs. He paused at a shiny keloid scar.

“You have a lot of scars,” he said.

“That was from a compound fracture I got when I was in a car accident, when I was fifteen. That was what brought me online. The hospital was hell, until they figured out what had happened and transferred me to the Center. All those people in pain and I had no way to stop myself from feeling it.” It wasn’t something Alaric ever talked about. But he wanted Damon to know everything.

Damon moved a little higher and traced his finger over another shiny scar low on Alaric’s stomach. “What about this one?”

“Trying to get a feral Sentinel off his injured Guide so they could help him. He stabbed me with a piece of glass.”

“Remind me to ask you about that later. Feral doesn’t sound good. I thought Sentinels were supposed to be protective of Guides?”

“He _was_ protective. Of _his_ Guide. Not me. He had no idea what he was doing.”

Damon moved a little higher again, and pressed his thumb against a sunburst scar on Alaric’s pectoral muscle.

“I do work for unbonded Sentinels in law enforcement sometimes. I got shot.”

“You _did_ work. Not anymore. You’re mine.”

Alaric smiled, and let his hand drift over Damon’s shoulder, his neck. “All yours.”

As if he’d noticed the darkening of the room, Damon reached out to switch on a beside lamp. His skin looked golden under the warm glow. He clambered up Alaric’s body to kiss him again, and Alaric groaned as he tasted himself in Damon’s mouth.

“Is this it?” Damon panted.

“If you mean are we done, we’ve barely started. I’m going to make you feel so fucking good, Damon, you don’t even know… god, I want you. I love you, I need you…”

He nuzzled into Damon’s throat, enjoying the smug smile on Damon’s face. He didn’t expect a reply. Damon was _showing_ him how he felt; whatever came next, this relationship wasn’t going to be easy overnight. Alaric didn’t need to hear the things he could feel, thrumming over the bond.

The bond that was growing stronger by the moment, under their touches.

“The echo,” Damon said.

Alaric reached up to press a hand against Damon’s cheek, and his heart raced as Damon closed his eyes and pressed into the touch, slipping until he could press his open mouth against Alaric’s palm.

Alaric shivered again, and rolled his hips.

Yeah, that was the echo. He could feel Damon touching him, feel himself touch Damon, feel the way his own skin felt beneath Damon’s fingertips…

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, rolling them over again. Damon swallowed, and closed his eyes, trying to separate what he was really feeling himself from the echo through the bond. He seemed to be having trouble with it, but it didn’t seem all that important. Alaric slotted his cock up alongside Damon’s, against his hip, his stomach, and nuzzled into his throat, one hand running over his chest. He tweaked one of Damon’s nipples, and Damon cried out. Good to know. Alaric grinned, and shifted until he could soothe the tiny bud with his tongue. “It’s even better than I imagined.

“Dial up a little,” he murmured, as he moved further south, tasting Damon’s skin.

“I’ll lose it,” Damon said.

“No, you won’t. I’m here.”

He brushed his fingertips over Damon’s waist and Damon cried out, nearing the point of being overwhelmed; but with their shields merged, it wasn’t going to happen.

“I want to fuck you,” Alaric murmured, into Damon’s thigh.

“Do it. Please,” Damon said. First time Alaric had heard him use the word without it dripping with sarcasm. Alaric slowed down, licking a wide stripe up the underside of Damon’s cock, and Damon cried out, hands over his head, gripping the headboard.

For half a second, Alaric wondered why Damon had been so resistant, back at the Center. But as soon as he started teasing out an answer, he realized he just didn’t care. Damon had the right to body autonomy, had the right to hate the Center, and absolutely had the right to be writhing under Alaric’s touch in a place where he felt safe.

“Top drawer,” he said, pointing at the side table, and Alaric straddled his thighs, reaching across to open it. He pulled out a tube of lubricant and a strip of condoms.

“No condom,” Damon said. Fuck, he sounded drunk. So drunk. He wasn’t; it was touch, it was desire, it was the echo, the imprint building up.

Alaric wanted to agree, but it was a huge thing. He had regular medical testing as a Guide, but still. Not everyone enjoyed an ass full of spunk, and there was every chance Damon didn’t even know what he was asking.

“Are you sure?”

“Nothing between us,” Damon said, making eye contact. He was squirming, writhing, and Alaric could only nod helplessly as he moved against him, resettling between Damon’s legs.

He slipped lower and pushed his hands under Damon’s upper thighs, lifting him until he could taste his rim. Damon cried out again, uncontrolled and desperate, still clutching at the headboard. Alaric darted his tongue harder, deeper, pushing past the tight ring of muscle and Damon bucked desperately against his mouth. Alaric felt something like the echo of the sensation against his own hole, and tried to resist the feeling, tried to focus.

He lubed up a finger and pushed past Damon’s ring, crooking his finger until Damon bucked wildly and cried his name. His name. His own name, Alaric’s names, louder and louder, until it was all that Alaric could hear. He added a second finger, and began to work Damon open in earnest.

“It’s enough,” Damon said, in a hoarse whisper.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Alaric replied, adding a third finger as he took Damon’s cock into his mouth. He let his tongue swirl around the head, the tip hardening as he pressed it against the frenulum, and Damon cried out again. Fuck, he was loud. It made Alaric wild. He couldn’t last much longer, no matter how many times he squeezed the base of his shaft hard.

He tucked his lower body up underneath Damon’s hips, and an inch at a time, sunk into that tight, gorgeous heat.

Damon’s eyes fell open, looking utterly stoned, and for a moment, Alaric thought he’d zoned. He reached for Damon’s cheek, and Damon met his eyes, smiling weakly, if desperately.

And then something shifted.

Alaric could still feel the echo; felt a stretch and burn he hadn’t expected but thoroughly enjoyed. Yeah, Damon was definitely going to have to fuck him, too, and soon. The echo was making him desperate to be filled up.

But that wasn’t what had shifted, not really.

One of Damon’s legs slowly moved to hook over Alaric’s shoulder, while the other wrapped tightly around his waist. Alaric began to thrust, but there was something strange and slow about it. Like he was fucking Damon through a lack of molasses. Every sensation dialed up to ten.

“Damon,” he murmured, but even his voice sounded deeper than usual, and slower. “What’s… what’s happening?”

It was _time_. Damon had shifted the dial on his sense of time, and beyond just an awareness of it, he’d let himself slow down, and that slow burn was being fed back through the brightly shining bond they were completing. Every movement was so deliberate, and so intense, and they never looked away from each other. Damon’s hands moved from the headboard to Alaric’s shoulders so slowly it looked like fucking ballet, or something.

“What’s happening?” Alaric asked, again, so slow, again, with a deeper voice than he would have recognized as human, let alone his own.

“Time,” Damon replied, simply. _Time_ , and every sensation fed back through the bond, which was now bright and shining as a golden cord between them.

Alaric closed his hand over Damon’s cock, and began to jerk him, meticulously, intensely.

“Keep looking at me,” he said, with more than a hint of Guide control in his voice. Damon looked at him, utterly calm and content, and held his gaze, through thrusts that seemed to take forever.

They were so close.

“Keep looking at me,” Alaric repeated, as Damon’s eyes tried to roll back in his head. “Finish the imprint. Focus on my heartbeat. My breath.”

“ _Our_ heartbeat,” Damon replied, sounding awestruck. “Our breath. We’re in sync.”

And they were. When Alaric focused on the echo, he could feel it. The chambers of two hearts moving at the precise same time, the expansion and contraction of lungs, and the subsequent oxygen bursting into the bloodstream and subsiding again.

Alaric felt his spine tingle, and a warm pool collect at the base, flooding his lower body with heat and need, and he felt Damon’s cock pulse in his hand. He made no attempt to pull out, releasing into Damon’s body, every molecule magnetized to Damon.

Time seemed to halt, for a moment. Maybe it did. And then they sped up to a slow, almost unbearably erotic crawl, and then it was over.

They never once looked away from each other.

The imprint was perfect.

 

 

They lay together for a long time, awake but partially dozing, kissing occasionally, letting their fingers move over each other’s skin.

“So much better than an underground bunker, no matter how much it looks like a room at the Hyatt,” Damon mumbled. Alaric smiled.

“So much better,” he agreed.

He wasn’t worried about needing to break this bond. Damon didn’t want to, he could feel that, the way he was touching, the way his contentment buzzed over their bond. They stayed curled up for a long time before Alaric tried to move.

“Where are you going?” Damon asked, sharply.

“Just to get something to clean us up with. Unless you’d rather wake up covered in dry, sticky come. Are you alright?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Damon replied, but he looked relaxed and pleased with himself, relaxing back against the mattress, so Alaric didn’t push.

They stayed curled up together, once Alaric had wiped them both clean, gently, until the sun came up.

And then they did it all again.

 

 

When they woke a second time, with Damon curled over Alaric’s back (apparently, the Sentinel instincts had kicked in ferociously, and he was in protective mode; more a jetpack than a big spoon, but just as nice), they were more sedate. Starving hungry, both of them, but unwilling to acknowledge it when they felt this good, this calm, this connected. The room smelled like sex, to Alaric, and no doubt like a lot of different things to Damon.

“What happens now?” Damon asked, pressing his face between Alaric’s shoulders.

“Breakfast.”

“No,” Damon said. “I don’t mean that. I live here, you live in New York. But we can’t live on opposite sides of the country, now. Right?”

Alaric turned in his arms.

“It would be hard,” he said. Understatement was one of his skills. “Could you do it?”

Damon seemed to think about it for a minute, and then he tightened his grip on Alaric’s body, pressing his forehead to Alaric’s. Alaric felt a flash of anxiety. Damon’s, not his own.

“No. So?”

“So we figure it out. Like any other couple.”

“Are we a couple, now?” Damon asked.

“We are so much more than that,” Alaric replied, pressing forward for another kiss.

 

 

Alaric sent Elena a text explaining what had happened, once he and Damon had enjoyed a long, luxurious shower that had lasted until they were both breathless and the water was cold. She replied with a series of exclamation marks and random emojis, and a reminder that they needed to come in for some paperwork and a couple of tests. Alaric sat on the arm of Damon’s sofa, watching him in the kitchen. Damon declared there was nothing edible in the fridge and they were heading out for brunch.

A block away from the apartment, Damon slipped his hand into Alaric’s.

“There’s nothing in San Diego worth staying for,” he said. He sounded a little sad about it.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He stopped on a street corner, waiting for the walk light to flash, and they crossed the street.

“But you have to quit your job. The thought of you working with other Sentinels — especially unbonded ones — makes me feel…”

Alaric squeezed his hand. “Possessive?” He grinned.

“I was thinking murderous,” Damon growled back, with his eyes flashing, and Alaric could see he wasn’t joking. “The thought of any of them coming near you is bad enough. The thought of you getting yourself in harm’s way to help one? I can’t see that ending well for anyone but me. You might have noticed I have a temper.”

Alaric did, as well, but it seemed to ebb away in Damon’s presence. He’d always thought Guides needed Sentinels as much as Sentinels needed Guides, and now he had his proof. Damon was exhausting and high maintenance and absolutely worth every second of it.

“We’ll find something. You and me… there’s not a lot we can’t do, now. No more construction, no more bartending. We’ll find something cushy and well-paid and stay in bed most of the time.”

“And I thought I was supposed to be the clingy one,” Damon said, rolling his eyes. Alaric only smiled.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just a heads-up that I have a couple of busy weeks ahead of me at work and I might be a little quiet. I'll still post whenever I can manage it. If you'd like to come and say hi, you'll find me at [fuckyoupbk](http://fuckyoupbk.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


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